EE 


RKMA'R'SiES 


;iTY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


NOT  TO  BE 
^  READING  E 

',  RETURN    A'J 


LIBRARY 

i 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ON 

DIRECT  PRIMARIES 

[REPRINTS] 


MINNEAPOLIS 

THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 
1905 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

These  reprints,  dealing  with  material  upon  both  sides 
of  the  question  of  Direct  Primaries,  were  prepared  es- 
pecially for  the  use  of  the  Minnesota  High  School 
Debating  League.  Articles  have  been  reprinted  in 
whole  or  in  part  as  the  circumstances  seemed  to  de- 
mand. Where  a  number  of  articles  have  dealt  with 
the  same  material  certain  parts  have  been  eliminated 
so  as  to  avoid  repetition.  This  has  made  it  possible 
to  put  in  compact  and  convenient  form  a  large  amount 
of  valuable  material. 

These  reprints  will  be  found  especially  valuable  to 
students  taking  part  in  debates  on  the  subject,  or  to 
clubs  or  individuals  making  a  study  of  the  subject. 
Librarians  will  find  it  most  useful  since  it  will  furnish 
as  much  information  on  the  subject  as  will  ordinarily 
be  called  for,  and  will  make  available  a  large  amount 
of  valuable  material  that  comparatively  few  libraries 
will  have. 


210086 


CONTENTS 


Title  Page 

Progress  of  Primary  Reform.     Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff.  Chau- 

tauquan.    38:  9-10.    September,    1903.  1 

Direct  Primaries.     Harper's  Weekly.  46:  1070.  August  9,  1902.  3 
Minnesota's    New   Primary   Election   Law.      Samuel   M.    Davis. 

Independent.  52:  2495-7.    October  18,  1900.          -                       -  6 
Results  of  the  Minnesota  Direct  Primary  System.    T.  M.  Knap- 
pen.     Independent.   54:  2694-5.     November  13,   1902.         -  11 
The  Regeneration  of  the  Primary.    Nation.  33:  486-7.    December 

22,  1881.                                                                                                 -  15 
The  Primary  in  California.     A.  B.  Nye.     Nation.  34:  74-5.  Jan- 
uary   26,    1882.          -                                                                           -  18 
irect  Nominations.    Nation.  75:  85-7,    July  31,  1902.        -           -  23 
Primary  Reform.     Nation.  77:  5-6.     July  2,  1903.         -  26 
Progress  of  Primary  Reform.    Nation.  72:  290.    October  13,  1904.  29 
Primary  Elections.  Outlook.  57:  790.  December  5,  1897.      -           -  32 
A  Necessary  Reform.     Outlook.   57:  943-5.     December  18,   1897.  33 
The    Nominating    Ballot.      F.    M.    Brooks.      Outlook.    57:950-2. 

December  18,  1897.  37 
The  Nominating  Ballott.    L.  G.  McConachie.    Outlook.  58: 176-7. 

January  15,  1898.       -                                                                        -  41 

Primary  Election  Reform.     Outlook.  58:  266-8.  January  29,  1898.  43 

Primary  Elections.     Outlook.  58:  455-6.     February  19,  1898.  48 

Primary  Law  in  Illinois.     Outlook.   58:  753-4.     March  26,   1898.  49 

Primaries  in  New  York.    Outlook.  59:  411.   June  18,  1898.        -  50 

Primaries  in  Georgia.     Outlook.  59:  411-2.  June  18,  1898.     -      -  51 
The  Dark  Side  of  the  Direct  Primaries.     Outlok.  59:  797.     July 

30,    1898.    - 52 


vi  CONTENTS 

Concurrent   Primaries.     Outlook.    68:  8-9.     September   2,    1899.      64 

Direct  Primaries  in  South  Carolina.    Outlook.  60: 146.     Septem- 
ber,   10,    1898.  -      56 
/Direct  Primaries.    F.  M.  Brooks.    Outlook.  60:  251-2.    September 

24,  1S98.       -  57 

Hill  Bill  for  Primary  Reform.  Outlook.  58:  210.  January  22,  1898.      59 

An   Essential  Reform.     Outlok.   58: 261-2.     January  29,   1898.         60 

Direct  Primaries  and  Ward  Option  in  Ohio.     Outlook.     64:  378. 

February   17,    1900.      -  -      62 

Direct    Primaries    in    Kansas    and    Missouri.      Outlook.    63: 475. 

October   28,    1899.  63 

•-Direct  Primaries  Make  Headway.    Outlook.     65:  761.     August  4, 

1900.      -  -      64 

Direct  Primaries  in  Wisconsin.    Outlook.     65:  897-8.    August  18, 
1900.  66 

•Primaries,  Direct  and  Indirect.     Outlook.     66:  91-2.     September 

8,    1900. -67 

Direct  Primaries  in  Pennsylvania.     Outlook.     66:  861-2.    Decem- 
ber,   8,    1900.  69 

<Direct  Primaries  Demanded.    Outlook.    67:  477-8.  March  2,  1901.      71 
'Direct  Primaries.    Outlook.  67:  654-5.    March  23,  1901.      -  -      73 

Direct  Primary  in  Minnesota.  Outlook.  67:  838-9.    April  13,  1901.      74 

/Direct  Primaries.     Outlook.  68:  140-1.     May  18,  1901.        -  -      76 

The  Rights  of  Man:  A  Study  in  Twentieth  Century  Problems. 
Lyman  Abbott.     Outlook.   68:  396-9.     June  15,   1901.       -  77 

Direct  Primaries  in  Boston.  Outlook.  69:  473-4.  October  26,  1901.      83 

Gains  and  Losses  for  Direct  Primaries.    Outlok.  70:  745.    March 
29,  1902.  -       84 

Direct  Nominations  in  Massachusetts.     Outlook.  72:  486-7.     No- 
vember   1,     1902.  86 

The   Joint   Primary   Plan   in   Massachusetts.     Outlook.    74:  537. 

July    4,    1903.  -      88 

More  Victories  for  Direct  Primaries.  Outlook.  75:237.     October 
3,   1903.       -  89 

The   Development   of   Self -Government:    Some   Lessons   of   the 
Late  Election.     Outlook.     79:  225-9.     January  28,  1905.        -      90 

The  Primary  Law  of  North  Dakota.     Outlook.  79:  611.     March 
11,    1905. --  -100 


CONTENTS  vii 

The  Progress  of  the  "Direct  Primary  Reform."    World's  Work. 

6: 3715-6.  August,  190S.  -  101 

The  Convention  System— An  Evil.  Municipal  Affairs.  2: 177-81. 

June,  1898.  -  -  -  -  103 

Reform  of  Primaries.  Gunton's  Magazine.  14: 155-7.  March,  1898.  109 
Test  of  the  Minnesota  Primary  Election  System.  Frank  M. 

Anderson.     Annals  of  the  American  Academy.     20:  616-26. 

November,  1902.  -  -  -  111 

"County  Primary  Elections.  Annals  of  the  American  Academy. 

20:  640-3.  November,  1902.  -  112 

Municipal  Nomination  Reform.  Horace  E.  Deming.  Annals  of 

the  American  Academy.  25:  203-17.  November,  1905.  -  112 
•Theory  and  Practice  of  the  New  Primary  Law.  William  Hem- 
street.  Arena.  28:585-95.  December,  1902.  -  112 
Primary  Election  Reform.  Edward  Insley.  Arena.  29: 71-i. 

January,  1903.  -  -  113 

Caucus  or  King.  William  Hemstreet.  Arena.  30:295-301. 

September,  1903.  -  -  H3 

The  Nominating  System.  E.  L.  Godkin.  Atlantic  Monthly. 

79:450-67.  April,  1897.  -  -  113 

Primary  Election  Movement.  Albert  Watkins.  Forum.  33: 

92-102.  March,  1902.  -  -  113 

»<Doom  of  the  Dictator.  The  Editor.  Gunton's  Magazine.  20: 

323-32.  April,  1901.  -  -  113 

Caucus  Diseases.  William  Hemstreet.  Gunton's  Magazine.  26: 

23-8.  January,  1904.  -  1*4 

The  Caucus  and  its  Consequences.  Edward  D.  J.  Wilson. 

Nineteenth  Century.  4:  695-712.  October,  1878.  114 

v  Facts  about  the  Caucus  and  the  Primary.  George  Walton 

Green.  North  American  Review.  137:  257-69.  September,  1883.  114 
The  Movement  for  Better  Primaries.  William  H.  Hotchkiss. 

Reviews  of  Reviews.  17: 583-9.  May,  1898.  -  114 

The  Minnesota  Primary  Election  Law.  A.  L.  Mearkle.  Re- 
view of  Reviews.  24:  465-8.  October,  1901.  -  115 
Political  Movements  in  the  Northwest.  Charles  Baldwin  Che- 
ney. Review  of  Reviews.  31:  337-41.  March,  1905.  -  115 
Colorado  Election  Frauds.  Arthur  Chapman.  World  To-Day. 

8: 290-7.  March,  1905.  -  -  115 

The  Minnesota  Primary  Election  Law.  A.  L.  Mearkle.  Review 

of    Reviews.     24:  465-8.      October,    1901.  -  -  -      116 


Chautauquan.   38:9-10.     September,   1903. 
Progress   of    Primary    Reform.      Clinton    Rogers    Woodruff. 

There  is  no  denying  the  general  popular  interest  in  the 
question  of  primary  election  or  nomination  reform.  A  very 
considerable  number  of  the  annual  messages  of  the  gov- 
ernors this  year  referred  to  the  subject,  and  made 
suggestions  for  new  laws  or  for  amendments  to  existing 
laws.  In  Minnesota,  where  the  most  interesting  experiment 
has  been  carried  on  during  the  past  two  or  three  years, 
there  is  a  general  feeling  of  satisfaction  with  the  law,  not- 
withstanding some  of  the  difficulties  which  have  been 
encountered  and  some  of  the  evils  that  have  cropped  out. 
Governor  Van  Sant  expressed  this  feeling  in  his  annual 
message,  declaring  that  "after  a  trial  of  the  law,  the  con- 
sensus of  opinion  seems  to  be  that  it  will  be  a  permanent 
method  of  nominating  candidates  for  office.  Experience  has 
suggested  amendments  and  will  continue  to  do  so  from 
time  to  time." 

The  outcome  in  Wisconsin  is  quite  satisfactory.  For  four 
years  Governor  LaFollette  has  made  nomination  reform 
an  issue;  but  the  stalwart  wing  of  the  party  opposed  him 
in  his  issue.  Last  November,  LaFollette  was  elected  by 
a  very  large  majority,  but  he  did  not  carry  the  senate,  which 
remained  in  the  control  of  the  stalwarts.  The  house 
passed  a  very  satisfactory  primary  bill  and  the  senate 
amended.  A  deadlock  resulted,  which  was  broken,  however, 
by  an  agreement  to  pass  the  house  (or  LaFollette)  bill, 
with  a  referendum  clause.  The  bill  is  to  be  voted  on 
November,  1904,  and  if  the  majority  of  votes  is  cast  for 


2  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

it,  it  becomes  effective.  Under  the  Wisconsin  bill  all 
primaries  are  to  be  held  on  the  same  day;  the  names  of  all 
candidates  are  to  be  arranged  according  to  the  Australian  *** 
system:  there  is  to  be  official  supervision  and  a  direct  / 
vote  for  all  candidates.  These  features  are  insisted  upon 
nearly  everywhere  as  essential  features  of  primary  reform 
bills  and  were  partially  included  in  the  recommendations 
of  the  Indianapolis  Commercial  Club's  Committee's  report 
(prepared  by  the  chairman,  former  Minister  to  Austria,  Ad- 
dison  C.  Harris).  The  question  which  provoked  most  dis- 
cussion in  Indiana  was  as  to  the  application  of  the  pro- 
posed law.  There  were  those  who~insisted  upon  making 
its  provisions  apply  to  all  the  cities  of  the  state  and  others 
wished  it  to  apply  only  to  Marion  county,  in  which  Indian- 
apolis lies.  Then  it  was  suggested  that  each  community 
be  given  the  opportunity  of  saying  whether  it  wants  a 
direct  primary  or  a  delegate  convention;  but  the  politicians 
succeeded  in  defeating  the  whole  question,  so  that  it  will 
go  over  for  another  session.  In  Michigan  both  parties 
declared  emphatically  in  favor  of  reform;  but  the  legisla- 
ture only  passed  laws  carrying  out  the  pledge  for  Wayne, 
Kent  and  Muskegon  counties.  The  Kent  county  bill  con- 
tained a  referendum  clause;  but  the  people  overwhelmingly 
voted  for  the  application  of  the  measure. 

In  Pennsylvania,  where  ballot  and  primary  reform  has 
been  regularly  promised  for  a  number  of  years  past  by 
both  Republicans  and  Democrats,  the  senate  is  still  cursed 
with  the  same  unfair  partisan  ballot  that  has  disgraced  the 
state  for  ten  years  and  the  same  inadequate  primary  laws 
that  have  made  Quay's  ascendency  easy  of  maintenance. 
In  New  Jersey  Governor  Murphy's  Primary  Commission 
recommended  official  ballots,  with  party  names  to  be  sub- 
mitted by  the  party  organizations  and  the  independent 
names  placed  on  the. primary  ballot  by  petition;  the  election 
to  be  held  on  one  of  the  registration  days  and  only  registered 
voters  to  be  allowed  to  cast  a  ballot.  It  looked  for  a  time 
as  if  the  politicians  would  defeat  the  bill;  but  the  governor 
and  his  friends  finally  prevailed. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  3 

The  Massachusetts  legislature  passed  a  direct  nomina- 
tion bill  for  Boston,  the  operation  of  which  will  be  watched 
with  interest;  as  it  is  generally  understood  that  if  successful 
there  it  will  be  applied  to  other  cities  of  the  state,  a  clause 
of  the  bill  providing  that  other  cities  can  avail  themselves 
of  the  law  by  a  formal  vote. 


Harper's  Weekly.  46:1070.  August  9,  1902. 
Direct  Primaries. 

The  other  experiment  is  not  a  wholly  untried  one,  but 
it  has  a  larger  field  for  testing  now  than  it  has  before  had. 
It  is  an  effort  to  adapt  the  theory  of  the  New  England 
town  meeting  to  a  State  whose  wheat-fields  are  as  big 
as  townships,  whose  cities  are  a  conglomerate  of  peoples, 
and  whose  public  schools  have  for  their  head  a  man  who  has 
not  yet  wholly  lost  the  accent  of  his  Scandinavian  parentage. 
It  is  called  the  Direct  Primary  Election  System,  and  its 
purpose  is  to  give  every  citizen  a  direct  voice  in  the  nom- 
ination of  public  officers  as  well  as  in  their  election. 

The  experiment  was  begun  with  a  single  county  (Hen- 
nepin  County,  of  which  Minneapolis  is  a  large  part),  but 
under  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  developed  chiefly  by 
the  newspapers,  the  system  was  extended  by  the  next 
Legislature  to  the  State,  excepting  only  village  and  town- 
ship officers  and  "officers  who  are  chosen  wholly  by  the 
electors  of  the  State."  Congressmen,  members  of  the  State 
Legislature,  mayors  of  cities,  and  aldermen — all  are  now 
nominated  through  the  direct  primaries.  Caucuses  and  con- 
ventions are  still  retained  for  the  nomination  of  State  officers 
only  (as  just  designated);  they  have  not  been  abolished 
altogether,  for  the  reason,  as  one  prominent  official  ex- 
plained, that  there  must  be  some  machinery  or  organization 
for  deciding  upon  party  policies  and  constructing  party 


4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

platforms  within  the  State.  And  though  a  past  advocate 
of  the  system,  he  spoke  tremblingly,  as  if  the  law  might 
eventually  destroy  what  was  left  of  these  venerated  and 
idolized  agencies  of  government. 

Minnesota  is  therefore  performing  a  national  service  in 
testing,  in  this  extensive  way  and  under  such  widely  variant 
conditions,  a  new  system  of  recording  the  wishes  of  citizen- 
ship and  of  getting  them  realized;  for  it  need  hardly  be  said 
that  citizenship,  however  admirable  it  may  be  in  its  passive 
state,  is  neither  self-registering  nor  automatic.  Democracy 
has  sometimes  been  suspected  of  not  knowing  what  was  best 
for  it,  and  even  more  often  of  not  being  able  to  say  what 
was  best  for  it,  if  it  did  know:  first,  because  of  the  meagre- 
ness  of  its  information,  and  second,  because  of  the  inaccu- 
racy of  its  speech.  If  the  direct  primaries  accomplish  what 
their  authors  hop'e,  that  portion  of  our  democracy  within 
the  boundaries  of  Minnesota,  even  if  not  better  informed, 
should  be  better  able  to  say  and  to  get  what  it  thinks  it 
wants. 

Whether  the  first  results  are  indicative  of  a  defect  in 
the  system  or  not,  certainly  they  are  not  propitious.  The 
people  of  Minneapolis  knew  what  sort  of  a  man  one  of  the 
candidates  for  mayor,  in  the  first  test  of  this  law,  was; 
and  his  nomination  would  doubtless  have  been  impossible 
under  the  old  system;  but  under  the  new  he  was  nominated 
and  elected.  He  is  now  under  indictment  for  bribery,  and 
is  said  to  be  absent  from  the  State.  His  brother,  who  is 
Chief  of  Police  of  the  same  city,  is  also  under  indictment, 
and  is  also  reported  a  fugitive.  No  one  believes  that 
these  are  the  sort  of  officers  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  of  Minneapolis  will  wittingly  and  willingly  have.  It 
is  claimed  that  the  result  was  made  possible  only  through 
the  failure  of  the  law  to  safeguard  the  primaries  of  one 
party  from  the  venal  and  unscrupulous  voters  of  other 
parties.  The  amended  law  requires  the  voter  to  make 
declaration  (under  oath,  if  challenged)  of  the  party  with 
which  he  affiliated  at  the  last  general  election,  and  with 
which  he  proposes  to  affiliate  at  the  next  election.  This  par- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  5 

ticular  collusion  could  therefore  probably  never  happen 
again,  but  it  would  seem  that  the  means  taken  to  prevent 
it  must  inevitably  deter  many  men  of  sensitive  consciences 
and  doubtful  party  associations  from  voting  at  all. 

These  objections  are  also  urged:  (i)  That  it  will  be 
more  difficult  than  it  was  under  the  caucus  system  to  per- 
suade good  men  "to  run  for  the  nomination,"  that  only 
those  who  have  no  business  or  occupation,  or  who  get  their 
living  from  politics,  will  be  willing  to  make  the  necessary 
canvass;  (2)  that  the  new  system  makes  it  less  difficult  for 
great  interests  to  manipulate  candidates;  (3)  that  it  prevents 
a  fair  geographical  distribution  of  candidates,  and  a  recog- 
nition of  varied  interests  and  classes  of  the  communities 
represented;  and  (4)  that  it  removes  all  responsibility  from 
party  managers,  and  dissipates  it,  so  that  it  falls  upon 
no  one. 

Some  of  these  appear  to  be  serious,  but  after  all  they 
do  not  assail  the  principle  of  this  direct  primary  law,  which 
seeks  to  assure  every  voter  the  privilege  of  the  full  and 
unrestrained  exercise  of  his  franchise.  This  he  has  nom- 
inally under  the  caucus  system.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  this  newly  devisd  machinery  will  be  more  effectual 
in  giving  him  the  reality — in  enabling  democracy  to  express 
more  accurately  and  forcibly  what  it  thinks  it  wants. 


Independent.     52:2495-7.     October  18,  1900. 

Minnesota's  New  Primary  Election  Law.     Samuel  M.  Davis. 

The  present  primary  election  law  was  passed  by  the  Leg- 
islature of  1899.  The  act  provided  for  the  selection  of  can- 
didates for  elections  by  popular  vote.  Various  individuals 
have  claimed  the  credit  of  promising  and  bringing  about 
the  passage  of  the  present  law.  The  fact  is,  however,  that 
the  law  is  a  compromise  based  upon  five  bills  presented  to 
the  Legislature.  The  measure  applies  only  to  counties  hav- 


6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ing  200,000  or  more  population.  That  provision  limits  the 
action  of  the  law  to  the  single  county  of  Hennepin,  in  which 
the  city  of  Minneapolis,  the  largest  city  in  the  State,  is 
situated.  The  advocates  of  the  law  were  especially  anxious 
that  the  measure  be  applied  to  cities.  This  was  on  account 
of  the  manipulations  of  politicians,  practiced  at  the  primaries 
and  in  the  conventions  of  both  parties.  The  main  object 
of  the  law  was  to  make  it  possible  for  the  individual  voter, 
who  attended  the  primary,  to  have  his  vote  count  for  the 
person  he  desired  to  become  the  candidate  of  his  party  at 
the  next  general  election. 

Under  the  old  system  of  caucuses  or  primaries,  a  few 
leaders  and  small  politicians  controlled  everything  by  dic- 
tating the  delegates  that  were  to  be  chosen  by  the  caucus 
to  attend  the  convention.  In  many  precincts  under  the  old 
system,  there  would  be  only  the  set,  or  ticket,  of  delegates 
put  forward  by  the  party  workers  to  be  voted  for.  There 
was  no  opportunity  for  a  choice.  It  was  a  "vest  pocket" 
affair,  usually  gotten  up  by  the  chairman  of  the  precinct 
committee.  It  was  to  obviate  and  reform  this  domination 
of  the  caucus  by  a  few  that  the  present  primary  law  was 
enacted.  It  was  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  individual 
voter  the  opportunity  to  vote  directly  for  the  candidates 
to  be  nominated. 

The  law  is  based  on  the  Australian  ballot  law  in  general 
use  throughout  the  United  States.  Any  party  that  has 
cast  ten  per  cent,  of  the  total  vote  cast  at  the  last  preceding 
election  for  its  leading  candidate  is  declared  a  political  party, 
and  may  make  nominations  under  this  law.  Any  elector 
may  become  a  candidate  by  filing  with  the  county  auditor 
a  petition  which  shall  contain  names  of  qualified  electors  at 
least  five  per  cent,  in  number  of  the  total  vote  cast  for  the 
candidate  of  his  party,  for  the  same  office,  at  the  last 
election,  and  by  further  paying  a  fee  of  ten  dollars  and 
filing  an  affidavit  with  the  county  auditor  that  it  is  his 
bona  fide  intention  to  run  as  a  candidate  of  the  party  to 
which  he  belongs.  The  candidate  is  then  entitled  to  have 
his  name  printed  on  the  official  ballot.  All  ballots  are  fur- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  7 

nished  to  the  respective  polling  places  under  the  supervision 
of  the  county  auditor.  Each  party  has  a  separate  ticket, 
the  names  of  the  candidates  being  arranged  alphabetically. 

When  the  voter  appears  and  registers  he  is  then  handed 
the  tickets  of  each  party,  pinned  together,  and  he  retires 
to  the  voting  booth,  as  under  the  Australian  system,  and 
marks  whichever  ticket  he  wishes  to  vote.  If  he  marks 
some  on  each  ticket  his  ticket  will  be  counted  for  the  party 
upon  which  he  has  made  the  most  marks,  and  the  other 
ballots  will  be  disregarded.  In  case  he  marks  an  equal 
number  on  each  or  all  of  the  ballots,  all  will  be  rejected 
This  provision  is  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  the  voter 
to  stick  to  one  political  party.  He  cannot  vote  for  five 
candidates  on  the  Republican  ticket  and  three  on  the  Dem- 
ocratic. He  would  thus  lose  his  Democratic  votes,  as 
that  ballot  would  be  thrown  out.  In  order  to  have  his  vote 
count  all  the  way  through  he  must  stick  to  the  ticket  of  a 
single  party.  All  ballots,  whether  voted  or  not  must  be 
returned  to  the  judges. 

On  September  i8th  the  law  was  first  put  into  practical 
operation  in  Hennepin  County.  The  chief  interest  centered 
in  the  city  of  Minneapolis.  The  Republicans  had  many 
candidates  in  the  field  for  most  of  the  offices.  The  Dem- 
ocrats, on  the  other  hand,  had  generally  a  one-man  ticket 
for  each  place. 

One  of  the  candidates  on  the  Republican  ticket  for  mayor 
has  been  a  lifelong  Democrat,  having  been  elected  mayor 
of  the  city  three  terms,  no  two  of  them,  however,  being 
consecutive.  On  another  occasion,  failing  of  nomination 
for  mayor,  he  ran  on  an  independent  ticket  and  was  defeated. 
A  short  time  since  he  became  converted  to  the  Republican 
faith,  and  this  year  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
mayor  on  the  Republican  ticket.  His  political  career  has 
been  variable,  and  many  who  have  supported  him  in  the 
past  have  not  been  from  among  the  best  class  of  citizens. 
In  addition  to  this  he  was  an  objectionable  candidate  for 
any  party,  from  the  fact  that  his  administration  of  the 
city  favored  lawlessness.  He  ran  the  city  on  a  "wide  open" 


8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

policy.  This  objectionable  Republican  candidate,  by  securing 
five  or  six  thousand  Democratic  votes,  gained  the  nomina- 
tion for  mayor  on  the  Republican  ticket.  There  were 
this  number  of  Democrats  who  were  willing  to  throw 
away  all  other  votes  for  the  purpose  of  foisting  an  undesir- 
able candidate  upon  their  political  opponents.  With  the 
exception  of  the  nomination  for  mayor  the  results  of  a  test 
of  the  law  have  proved  satisfactory,  as  far  as  the  remain- 
ing nominees  of  both  are  concerned. 

As  one  of  the  evidences  that  the  people  generally  regard 
the  law  as  a  good  thing  is  the  large  number  of  voters  taking 
part  in  the  primary.  The  first  registration  for  the  next 
general  election  was  held  on  the  same  day  and  at  the  same 
polling  place  by  the  same  election  officers.  Before  an  elector 
could  vote  at  the  primary  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
register,  preparatory  to  taking  part  in  the  November  elec- 
tion. There  are  two  subsequent  registration  days.  There 
were  about  thirty-two  thousand  voters  taking  part,  or  prac- 
tically the  entire  vote  that  took  part  in  the  State  election 
of  1898,  and  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  vote  that  was  polled 
in  the  last  presidential  election  in  1896.  When  you  consider 
that  the  primaries  formerly  brought  out  scarcely  one-tenth 
of  the  voters,  you  can  readily  understand  how  ready  the 
people  were  to  come  out  and  cast  a  direct  vote  for  nom- 
inees. The  people  seem  to  be  satisfied  with  the  law,  and 
show  themselves  ready  to  take  part  in  the  primary  when 
they  believe  their  vote  will  go  to  the  candidate  they  desire 
to  support. . 

That  is  was  possible  for  Democrats  to  dictate  a  nom- 
ination for  the  Republicans,  and  an  unfit  one  at  that,  shows 
a  defect  in  the  law;  but  it  does  not  indicate  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  direct  nominations  is  not  correct,  or  that  in  other 
respects  the  Minneapolis  system  is  weak.  The  framers  of 
the  law  attempted  to  guard  against  such  a  contingency  as 
has  resulted  in  an  unfortunate  nomination.  That  they  have 
failed  in  this  instance  does  not  argue  that  the  law  in  itself 
is  bad  and  ought  to  be  repealed,  but  rather  that  it  should 
be  amended  to  safeguard  it  in  the  future.  With  the  excep- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  9 

tion  of  this  single  nomination,  the  remainder  of  the  ticket 
nominees  demonstrated  that  the  law  and  the  system  are 
a  success.  The  professional  politicians  have  not  scrupled 
to  declare  that  the  people  could  not  make  proper  nomina- 
tions. These  same  politicians  will  make  the  Minneapolis 
test  an  excuse  for  continuing  to  fight  a  system  that  takes 
the  business  of  nomination  out  of  the  hands  of  politicians 
and  puts  it  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  Not  only  did  the 
individual  voters  show  an  eagerness  to  take  advantage  of 
it,  but  they  voted  quickly,  indicating  that  they  had  already 
made  up  their  minds  as  to  the  merits  of  the  various  can- 
didates. Nor  were  the  voters  embarrassed  by  the  new 
machinery.  This  was  particularly  shown  by  those  voting 
in  the  early  morning,  a  class  of  voters  supposed  to  have 
very  little  political  discrimination.  In  precincts  where  this 
vote  was  heaviest  an  average  of  almost  one  ballot  per  min- 
ute was  cast,  thus  indicating  a  familiarity  with  the  machin- 
ery and  no  hesitation  in  selecting  and  marking  candidates. 
Everything  passed  off  smoothly  during  the  day,  and  only 
one  arrest  was  made  for  attempted  illegal  voting.  The 
saloons  were  closed,  as  on  a  general  election  day. 

Local  opinion  on  the  results  of  the  first  trial  of  the  law  is 
divided.  The  great  majority  of  the  people  regard  the  law 
as  correct  in  principle,  and,  with  some  few  amendments, 
would  favor  its  retention.  In  fact,  they  now  generally  look 
upon  the  matter  of  direct  nominations  by  the  people  as 
one  of  their  ''prerogatives,"  and  would  be  slow  to  give  it 
up.  The  "practical"  politicians,  on  the  other  hand,  declare 
that  the  law  must  be  repealed.  They  point  out  the  fact  of 
an  unfortunate  and  undesirable  nomination  for  the  head  of 
the  city  ticket,  brought  about  by  a  minority  of  an  opposite 
party,  and  unanimously  insist  on  its  repeal.  The  leading 
daily  newspapers  in  both  Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul,  both 
editorially  and  otherwise,  declare  in  favor  of  the  law; 
some  of  them  recommending  amendment  so  as  to  avoid 
like  results  in  the  future,  and  others  favoring  the  law  as  it 
stands  and  the  principle  it  represents.  The  Pioneer  Press 


10  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

of  St.  Paul  is  very  much  in  favor  of  the  law,  and  in  the 
course  of  an  editorial  on  the  subject  says: 

"For  the  Republicans  of  Minneapolis  to  turn  against  the 
principle  of  popular  nominations  because  at  its  first  test, 
under  circumstances  that  are  not  likely  to  recur,  it  resulted 
in  an  unfit  nomination  for  the  head  of  the  ticket,  would  be 
most  unfortunate.  Nothing  would  please  the  machine  men, 
the  war  heelers,  the  strikers  and  grafters,  more  than  a 
return  to  the  convention  system.  And  nothing  could  be 
more  unfortunate  for  the  betterment  of  local  government 
and  the  public  service  generally.  For  while  it  is  true  that 
'the  stream  cannot  rise  higher  than  its  source/  the  Pioneer 
Press  has  never  found  any  indication  that  the  political  con- 
vention was  representative  of  public  opinion,  or  that  its 
nominees,  as  a.  rule,  have  been  up  to  the  standard  in  honesty 
or  capacity  that  would  be  demanded  by  the  public  if  it 
could  make  its  will  felt.  The  convention  system,  with  all 
its  attendant  machinery,  has  made  the  quest  of  public  office 
distasteful  to  most  of  those  who  would  give  the  best  service, 
it  has  kept  the  best  men  'out  of  politics,'  it  has  turned  over 
the  business  of  nomination  to  the  self-seeking  and  unscru- 
pulous, it  has  made  the  machines  of  Platt,  of  Croker  and 
of  Quay  possible,  and  it  has  usually  subjected  the  voter  to 
the  necessity  of  choosing  between  candidates  none  of  whom 
was  satisfactory.  Rather  than  return  to  the  certainties  of 
this  system  it  would  be  far  better  to  run  the  chance  of  a 
repetition  of  such  a  nomination  as  was  forced  on  one  of 
the  parties  Tuesday.  The  Minneapolis  law,  in  a  word,  ought 
not  to  be  repealed,  but  extended  to  cover  St.  Paul,  Duluth 
and  the  other  cities  and  counties  of  the  State." 

The  principle  is  undoubtedly  correct,  and  it  would  seem 
that  an  amendment  can  be  secured  so  as  to  take  away  the 
objectionable  features  that  have  developed  under  the  first 
test.  Now  that  we  know  that  the  people  want  and  will 
exercise  their  rights  under  such  a  law,  the  sensible  thing 
to  do  is  to  stand  by  the  principle  contained  in  this  direct 
primary  election  law,  eliminating  from  it  objectionable  fea- 
tures and  perfecting  it  by  further  legislation. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  II 

Independent.  54:2694-5.  .November  13,  1902. 

Results  of  the   Minnesota   Direct  Primary  System.     T.   M. 
Knappen. 

On  September  i6th  Minnesota  had  the  first  experience 
any  northern  State  has  had  with  the  direct  primary  system. 
Two  years  ago  Minneapolis  (Hennepin  County)  exper- 
imented for  the  benefit  of  the  State,  but  this  year  the  plan 
was  tried  throughout  the  State,  and  nominations  were  made 
by  it  for  all  offices,  except  the  State  offices  and  those  of 
small  municipalities,  towns  and  villages.  Congressmen  were 
also  nominated  in  the  same  way.  Sufficient  time  has  now 
elapsed  since  this  pioneer  primary  election  day  to  come 
to  safe  conclusions  as  to  the  result  of  the  experiment. 

Briefly  stated,  the  primary  election  law  passed  by  the 
Legislature  of  1901  does  away  with  nominating  conventions, 
except  for  State  offices  and  those  of  small  political  sub- 
divisions. It  includes  municipal  offices  in  all  cities  over 
10,000  population.  A  candidate  for  nomination  gets  his  name 
on  the  ballot  by  filing  an  application  with  the  County  Aud- 
itor and  paying  a  small  fee.  The  party  ballots  are  "printed 
separately.  The  voter,  after  registering,  receives  the  ballot 
of  whichever  party  he  names.  The  law  directs  that  he  shall 
vote  the  ticket  of  the  party  he  affiliated  with  at  the  last 
preceding  general  election,  whose  candidates  he  most  gen- 
erally supported;  and  this  party  must  be  the  one  he  intends 
to  support  at  the  approaching  election.  The  election  is  con- 
ducted with  all  the  formality  of  the  Australian  system  as 
applied  at  the  final  elections,  and  is  wholly  under  public 
and  outside  of  party  control.  The  polls  are  kept  open 
from  six  in  the  morning  until  nine  in  the  evening.  A  plu- 
rality of  the  votes  cast  for  any  office  gives  the  nomination. 

Some  candidates  filed  the  applications  to  have  their  names 
put  on  the  ticket  many  months  before  the  primary  election, 
thinking  that  the  earlier  they  were  the  more  "advertising" 
they  would  get.  The  primary  election  campaign  was  in 


12  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

full  progress  as  early  as  June  ist.  For  the  most  part,  it  was 
a  campaign  of  handshaking  and  the  making  of  the  personal 
acquaintance  of  the  voters.  In  some  localities,  especially 
the  urban  districts,  there  was  much  speechmaking.  Candi- 
dates for  Congress  generally  drew  up  and  published  per- 
sonal platforms,  in  the  absence  of  nominating  conventions 
to  make  them.  In  the  Minneapolis  district  where  there 
was  a  sharp  contest  for  the  Republican  nomination  to 
Congress,  the  different  candidates  "stumped"  the  city  thor- 
oughly, two  of  them  making  pleas  for  votes  on  account 
of  their  notions  of  what  Congress  ought  to  do  in  regard 
to  reciprocity  with  Canada  and  Cuba,  revision  of  the  tariff, 
trusts,  etc.  But  as  no  principles,  but  merely  a  desire  for 
office,  were  behind  most  contests  the  candidates  strove  to 
meet  as  many  people  as  possible  and  solicit  their  support. 
It  was  found  to  be  a  very  fatiguing  task  for  most  of  them; 
much  harder  than  the  effort  to  get  a  convention  nom- 
ination. 

In  Minneapolis  the  total  vote  cast  at  the  primaries  was 
about  as  large  as  is  usually  cast  at  the  final  election  in 
"off"  years.  But  owing  to  the  fact  that  Democratic  nom- 
inations are  hopeless  in  most  parts  of  Minnesota,  that  elec- 
tion day  found  the  farmers  busy,  and  that  there  were  no 
spirited  contests  for  nominations  in  many  parts  of  the 
States,  the  total  vote  at  the  primary  election  was  only  about 
fifty  per  cent,  of  a  full  vote.  Nevertheless  it  was  several 
times  larger  than  the  vote  at  the  old  indirect  primaries  ever 
had  been.  The  fact  that  the  law  compels  a  voter  to  reveal 
his  party  affiliation  was  resented  by  many  independent  vot- 
ers, who  had  hoped  that  direct  primaries  would  enable 
them  to  assist  in  nominating  candidates,  and  many  of  them 
stayed  away  from  the  polls  for  that  reason.  Then,  too, 
the  terms  of  the  law  disqualified  any  voter  who  had  changed 
his  party  affiliations  since  the  last  election.  This  kept  some 
conscientious  voters  from  the  polls,  but  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  thousands  stifled  their  scruples,  and,  escaping  challenge, 
voted  the  ticket  their  fancy  suggested.  These  salved  their 
consciences  by  assuring  themselves  that  it  was  "nobody's 
business  what  ticket  they  voted." 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  13 

Reports  from  correspondents  in  all  parts  of  the  State 
printed  in  the  Minneapolis  Journal  as  well  as  symposiums 
of  newspaper  opinion  prove  that  the  law  is  so  popular  that 
its  repeal  or  essential  revision  is  not  within  the  realm  of 
practical  politics.  The  politicians  do  not  like  it,  but  the 
people  do.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  voters  are  delighted 
with  the  privilege  of  directly  participating  in  choosing  can- 
didates. 

There  is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  the  direct  primary  nom- 
ination system  is  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the  dominant 
party.  It  is  certain  that  large  numbers  of  Democrats  in 
Minnesota  voted  Republican  primary  tickets.  In  some  in- 
stances this  was  done  to  assist  personal  friends,  in  others 
to  punish  personal  enemies;  sometimes  to  foist  a  weak 
candidate  on  the  majority  party,  and  sometimes  to  drive 
from  office  a  strong  leader  who  could  not  be  defeated  at 
the  final  elections.  In  Democratic  precincts  of  Republican 
counties  the  Republican  vote  was  often  found  to  be  large, 
and  the  Democratic  vote  practically  nil.  Often  the  Repub- 
lican vote  approximated  the  entire  vote  of  the  precinct.  In 
several  Congressional  districts  candidates  for  the  Repub- 
lican nomination  secretly  solicited  Democratic  votes.  Mr. 
Volstead,  the  Republican  candidate  for  Congress  in  the 
Seventh  District,  was  nominated  by  Populist  voters.  Very 
little  challenging  was  done  ,and  the  provision  of  the  law 
designed  to  keep  voters  within  party  lines  is  proved  to  be 
a  complete  failure,  so  complete  that  it  is  now  urged  that, 
for  the  sake  of  honesty,  the  clause  should  be  repealed. 

Many  minority  nominations  resulted.  There  were  con- 
tests for  the  Republican  nomination  to  Congress  in  seven 
of  the  State's  nine  districts.  In  four  of  these  seven  the 
successful  candidate  is  a  minority  nominee. 

The  long  public  contest  within  the  majority  party  for 
nominations  stimulated  factional  bitterness,  and  led  to  intra- 
party  feuds,  which  will  result  in  the  defeat  of  the  nominees 
for  many  offices.  Where  the  contest  was  not  very  bitter 
loyalty  to  the  nominee  was  more  earnest  than  under  the 
convention  system.  A  defeated  partisan  forgets  his  sore- 


14  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ness  much  sooner,  other  conditions  being  equal,  when  he 
knows  that  he  was  beaten  by  so  many  hundreds  or  thous- 
ands of  votes,  than  when  he  loses  by  a  few  votes  in  an 
angry  convention.  But  in  many  cases  the  reasons  which 
caused  men  to  vote  against  a  candidate  at  the  primary 
election  will  cause  them  to  vote  against  him  at  the  final 
election. 

As  a  whole,  the  candidates  chosen  by  direct  primaries  are 
superior  to  those  chosen  by  convention.  A  man  of  good 
and  wide  reputation  in  the  community  is  under  no  handicap 
at  the  primary  election,  no  matter  how  little  he  may  know 
about  practical  politics.  The  best  known  man,  as  a  rule, 
has  a  great  advantage  over  competitors  not  so  well  known. 
Men  already  in  office,  if  their  records  are  not  notoriously 
bad,  have  an  advantage  over  outsiders.  The  people  do 
not  act  passionately.  Had  the  people  consulted  their 
impulses  in  the  First  and  Fifth  Congressional  districts,  Mr. 
Tawney  and  Mr.  Fletcher  would  have  been  defeated  on 
account  of  their  unpopular  opposition  to  reciprocity  with 
Cuba.  In  the  First  District,  especially,  popular  resentment 
on  account  of  misrepresentation  on  this  subject  was  intense. 
But  in  the  end  the  Republicans  of  both  districts  concluded 
that  it  was  wisdom  to  overlook  the  mistake  rather  than  to 
exclude  from  Congress  veteran  and  efficient  representatives. 
As  a  rule  the  voter  have"  selected  candidates  quite  as  wisely 
from  every  standpoint  as  the  politicians  usually  do. 

The  refreshing  results  of  the  system  as  it  bears  on  honest 
municipal  government  are  alone  enough  to  save  it  from 
condemnation.  Two  trials  in  Minneapolis  prove  that  it  in- 
sures good  aldermen.  Faithless  aldermen  or  those  suspected 
of  "boodling"  or  undue  intimacy  with  corporation  interests 
have  little  hope  of  nomination. 

The  people  of  Minnesota  are  henceforth  wedded  to  the 
direct  nomination  system.  With  all  its  faults,  they  will  not 
give  it  up. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  15 

Nation.  33:486-7.     December  22,  1881. 

The  Regeneration  of  the  Primary. 

The  special  committee  of  the  Young  Men's  Democratic 
Club  have  made  a  report,  on  primary  elections  in  this  city, 
which  contains  some  important  suggestions  in  the  direction 
of  those  which  we  have  recently  been  producing  in  these 
columns.  It  acknowledges  that  no  full  attendance  at  pri- 
maries can  be  obtained  as  long  as  they  are  held  simply 
for  the  purpose  of  electing  delegates  to  a  nominating  con- 
vention, because  the  firm  conviction  of  the  mass  of  the 
voters  is,  that  the  result  of  such  elections  is  always  arranged 
beforehand,  or,  as  the  report  says,  "is  fixed  up  by  some 
job  or  ring  influence."  It  acknowledges,  too,  that  "the  better 
element"  of  the  party  in  this  city  will  not  go  to  primary 
meetings  in  the  evening  under  any  circumstances,  and  will 
not  go  at  any  hour  "at  the  risk  of  encountering  a  crowd,  or 
being  hustled  or  jostled  by  intoxicated  men."  It  therefore 
proposes  that  every  primary  meeting  should  vote  directly 
for  the  party  nominees,  and  not  for  delegates  to  a  nom- 
inating convention;  that  the  polls  should  be  kept  open  all 
day,  so  that  business  men  could  consult  their  own  con- 
venience as  to  the  hour  of  going  to  them;  that  the  sanction 
of  law  should  be  given  to  primary  meetings;  that  there 
should  be  legal  penalties  for  frauds  committed  at  them  and 
for  violent  disturbances  of  them,  and  that  there  should  be 
an  enrollment  of  the  party  voters  partly  on  personal  appli- 
cation and  partly  on  house-to-house  visitation. 

The  committee  cite  in  support  of  their  recommendation 
of  the  direct  vote  the  trial  of  the  plan  during  the  last  ten 
years  in  Richmond,  Va.  There  the  primary  votes  directly 
for  the  candidate,  and  the  polls  are  open  all  day.  The  result 
has  been  the  extirpation  of  municipal  bosses,  and  an  ex- 
traordinarily full  vote.  In  1876,  when  all  the  municipal 
offices  were  to  be  filled,  6,200  Democrats  out  of  7,500 
registered  voted  on  the  nominations  at  the  polls  of  the 
primaries.  If  we  could  obtain  anything  approaching  to  the 


16  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

same  proportion  of  the  party  vote  on  nominations  of  both 
sides  in  this  city,  what  a  gain  it  would  be!  Moreover  the 
power  of  every  boss  is  built  up  and  maintained  by  his 
skill  in  "controlling"  or  "fixing"  primaries.  His  whole  sys- 
tem of  management  rests  on  this.  A  primary  can,  of  course 
be  most  easily  "fixed"  when  it  is  small,  and  when  its  action 
is  so  indirect  that  an  outsider  cannot  tell  what  its  effect  will 
be.  Consequently  every  boss  likes  to  have  it  attended 
by  as  few  persons — provided  they  are  of  the  right  kind — as 
possible,  and  (for  this  purpose)  likes  to  have  it  held  at 
inconvenient  hours  and  under  conditions  likely  to  alarm 
or  disgust  what  Democrats  call  "the  better  element,"  or  in 
other  words  all  that  portion  of  voters  who  are  busy  and 
do  not  make  a  professions  of  politics.  In  this  way  he  has 
only  his  own  adherents  to  deal  with,  and  by  confining  the 
work  to  the  election  of  delegates  to  another  convention 
he  introduces  a  fresh  element  of  uncertainty  into  the  tran- 
saction which  increases  his  power  of  making  "deals." 

There  is  no  question  that  the  withdrawal  of  the  nom- 
inating power  from  the  little  nocturnal  gatherings  which 
now  exercise  it,  and  giving  it  to  the  main  body  of  the  voters 
voting  in  daylight,  under  the  same  guarantees  as  to  order 
and  honesty  which  now  surround  the  elections,  would,  in 
the  great  cities  at  least,  be  an  enormous  gain,  both  for  politics 
and  morals.  Public  morality  even  more  than  good  govern- 
ment calls  for  the  destruction  of  the  bosses.  The  effect  on 
the  young  men  of  the  spectacle  of  their  methods  and  their 
success  is,  and  cannot  but  be,  in  the  highest  degree  cor- 
rupting. All  publicly  recognized  success  which  is  won  by 
trickery  and  occult  instrumentality  gives  a  lesson  to  the 
young  against  which  schools  and  pulpits  contend  in  vain. 

The  bosses  will  never  be  put  down  by  mere  denunciation 
or  exhortation.  It  is  not  want  of  dislike  of  their  practices 
on  the  part  of  the  public  which  makes  them  flourish.  It  is 
the  fact  that  they  have  behind  them  a  nominating  system, 
not  exactly  of  their  own  contrivance,  but  which  they  have 
learned  to  turn  to  use  for  their  own  advantage.  Moreover, 
it  is  a  system  which  produces  bosses  in  endless  succession. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  17 

no  matter  how  many  individual  bosses  may  be  overthrown 
by  popular  risings.  As  long  as  the  Machine  remains,  per- 
sons competent  to  handle  it  will  constantly  reappear.  The 
radical  cure,  therefore,  is  to  be  found  in  the  destruction 
of  the  Machine.  The  actual  assemblage  of  the  party  voters 
for  the  purpose  of  nominating  candidates  may  be  desir- 
able in  country  towns,  where  everybody  knows  everybody, 
where  the  demands  of  business  and  society  upon  the  time 
of  individuals  are  small,  and  where  there  is  no  adequate 
discussion  of  local  affairs  through  the  press.  But  in  large 
cities,  meetings  for  purposes  of  deliberation  or  comparison 
of  views  are  never  held,  and  if  held  would  be  a  mockery. 
Meetings  never  take  place  in  cities,  except  to  listen  to 
selected  speakers,  supportingg  a  cut-and-dried  platform,  or, 
as  in  the  case  of  primaries,  to  confirm  by  vote  a  prepared 
programme.  The  discussion  and  deliberation  of  large  and 
dense  communities  are  now  done  and  have  to  be  done  by 
the  press,  and  are  done  by  the  press  far  more  effectively 
than  they  could  possibly  be  by  any  real  debate.  No  voter 
who  go.es  to  the  polls  in  a  great  city  could  possibly  learn 
from  attending  a  nocturnal  primary  any  thing  about  the 
considerations  which  should  affect  his  vote,  while  he  would 
lose  a  good  deal  of  valuable  time. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  if  it  be,  as  is  generally 
conceded,  of  great  importance  that  "the  better  element" 
in  both  parties  should  take  part  in  politics,  the  tastes, 
habits,  and  requirements  of  the  "element"  will  have  to  be 
considered.  "The  better  element,"  like  the  bad  element,  is 
human,  and  cannot  be  got  to  do  what  it  does  not  like  to 
do,  except  by  the  infliction  of  legal  penalties.  Unless 
it  is  proposed  to  make  it  take  part  in  nominations  by  the 
aid  of  the  police,  the  work  must  be  adapted  to  its  idiosyn- 
cracies,  and  one  of  the  strongest  and  best  ascertained  of 
these  is  dislike  to  leaving  home  after  dark,  to  engage 
in  wordy  or  other  warfare  in  crowded  rooms  with  persons 
in  liquor.  If  this  were  a  condition  of  voting  at  elections, 
they  would  soon  cease  to  vote.  But  voting  at  elections  being 
safe,  orderly,  and  convenient,  they  vote.  Where  would 


18  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

be    the    harm    of   making    party    nominations    safe,    orderly 
and   convenient? 


Nation.  34:  74-5.  January  26,  1882. 
The    Primary   in    California.     A.    B.    Nye. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Nation: 

Sir:  Referring  to  your  article  of  December  22  on  "The 
Regeneration  of  the  Primary,"  it  may  be  interesting  news 
to  some  of  your  readers  that  in  California  the  election  law 
has  taken  cognizance  of  primary  elections  ever  since  1866. 
Under  the  present  codes,  which  were  adopted  in  1872,  it  is 
competent  for  the  recognized  authority  of  any  voluntary 
political  association  calling  a  primary  election  to  state 
by  resolution  that  such  primary  will  be  held  under  the  pro- 
visions of  the  law  for  general  elections;  at  the  same  time 
the  resolution,  which  is  required  to  be  published,  must  state 
what  qualifications,  in  addition  to  those  demanded  for  an 
elector  at  the  general  election,  must  be  possessed  by  voters 
at  the  proposed  primary,  and  persons  must  be  designated 
to  constitute  boards  of  election.  These  boards  are  then  re- 
quired to  proceed  in  the  same  manner  as  to  receiving  ballots, 
hearing  and  determining  challenges,  and  canvassing  as  the 
board."  at  the  general  elections;  all  the  penalties  of  the  penal 
code  which  are  applicable  to  a  violation  of  duty  in  the  one 
case  being  equally  applicable  in  the  other. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  if  the  extension  of  legal  safe- 
guards to  the  primary  election  were  all  that  is  needed  to 
perfect  that  institution,  the  desired  result  would  long  ago 
have  been  attained  in  this  State.  Tt  may  also  be  stated 
that,  contrary  to  what  seems  to  be  the  custom  in  New 
York  and  the  East  generally,  primaries  are  here  invariably 
held  in  the  daytime,  so  that  "business  men"  are  at  liberty 
to  "consult  their  own  convenience  as  to  the  hour"  of  voting. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  19 

Now  when  we  come  to  inquire  whether  these  innovations, 
which  some  seem  to  suppose  are  all  that  is  required  for 
"the  regeneration  of  the  primary,"  have  materially  altered 
its  character  or  made  it  more  satisfactory  in  California  than 
it  is  in  other  places,  we  are  obliged  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  they  have  not.  The  primary  works  here  about  as  it 
does  everywhere  else — viz.,  with  reasonably  fair  results  in 
the  country,  and  in  the  cities  in  a  way  which  is  well-nigh 
the  despair  of  good  citizens  When  we  say  the  results 
of  the  primary  are  good  in  the  county,  we  mean  the  ultimate 
result  of  getting  candidates  of  a  respectable  class;  it  is 
not  meant  that  this  is  brought  about  by  obtaining  a  full 
and  explicit  expression  of  the  party  will,  for,  as  a  rule,  only 
about  one  out  of  ten  of  the  members  of  a  party  attends  the 
primary. 

The  estimation  in  which  primaries  are  held  in  San  Fran- 
cisco may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  they  are  sometimes 
dispensed  with  entirely,  the  county  committee  appointing 
a  lot  of  prominent  citizens  to  constitute  a  nominating 
convention.  A  primary  is  the  sure  precursor  of  dissensions, 
and  not  infrequently  of  bolts  and  rival  conventions.  At 
the  Democratic  primary  previous  to  the  election  of  last 
year  the  whole  machine  broke  to  pieces;  two  conventions 
were  held  and  separate  nominations  made.  Although  the 
differences  were  compromised  on  the  eve  of  election,  har- 
mony has  not  been  restored,  and  the  leaders  are  even  now 
discussing  ways  and  means  to  reconstitute  their  shattered 
organization. 

Before  attempting  any  explanation  of  the  manifold  failures 
of  the  primary,  let  me  say  that  the  plan  of  voting  directly 
for  the  party  nominees  instead  of  for  the  members  of  a 
convention  that  will  select  them  (which  is  the  plan  you 
seem  to  regard  so  hopefully  in  your  editorial  of  the  22d  ult.) 
has  been  often  tried  in  the  country  districts  of  California, 
where  it  is  known  as  "the  Crawford  County  plan,"  but 
has  not  been  found  to  work  well.  It  leads  to  giving  too 
much  importance  to  local  considerations;  the  average  voter 
will  vote  for  his  own  townsman,  with  whom  he  is  acquainted, 


20  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

rather  than  for  a  candidate  from  some  other  town  concern- 
ing whom  he  knows  little  or  nothing.  Consequently,  if 
there  is  one  large  town  in  the  county,  it  will  usually  get  all 
the  candidates,  and  completely  shut  out  the  smaller  towns. 
This  will  infallibly  make  trouble  in  the  party  ranks,  and 
probably  defeat  the  ticket  when  the  general  election  comes 
off.  Or,  if  there  is  no  one  town  that  overshadows  the  rest  of 
the  county,  there  may  be  a  large  number  of  candidates  who 
have  received  so  nearly  an  equal  number  of  votes  that 
to  give  the  nomination  to  the  one  who  has  received  two  or 
three  more  than  anybody  else,  on  the  claim  that  he  is  the 
choice  of  the  people,  appears  absurd.  It  will  frequently 
happen,  too,  that  the  person  who  gets  this  meagre  plurality 
is  precisely  the  most  objectionable  and  weakest  candidate 
in  the  lot,  but  who  has  been  able,  by  unenviable  means,  to 
mass  the  worst  elements  in  the  party,  and  outvote  any 
single  one  of  his  more  respectable  competitors.  So,  after 
all  the  dissatisfaction  with  county  conventions,  they  seem 
to  be  the  lesser  of  two  evils. 

The  favorite  theory  of  professional  politicians  for  ac- 
counting for  the  slim  attendance  at  primaries — viz.,  laziness 
or  indifference  of  the  voters — will  not  hold  water.  If  voters 
had  a  definite  object  in  view,  and  knew  just  how  to  accom- 
plish it,  they  would  be  as  eager  to  attend  primaries  as  the 
general  election.  If  they  saw  a  clearly-defined  issue,  to  be 
decided  by  their  votes  one  way  or  another,  no  exhortation 
would  be  needed  to  induce  them  to  go  to  the  polls.  This 
is  shown  by  the  occasional  full  votes  at  primaries  when 
there  is  a  "contest"  between  two  men  or  measures,  and 
when  it  is  known  to  every  voter,  beyond  the  possibility  of 
mistake,  exactly  what  the  difference  is  between  voting  for 
one  list  of  delegates  or  the  other.  But  usually  there  is  no 
such  contest.  Frequently  there  is  only  one  ticket  in  the 
field,  and  when  there  are  two  the  non-professional  politician 
can  seldom  tell  what  is  at  stake,  or  what  difference  it  will 
make  if  he  votes  for  one  rather  than  the  other.  He  believes 
the  "workers"  have  some  interest  in  the  decision,  and  that 
depending  upon  that  decision  is  a  choice  of  nominees;  but 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  21 

he  does  not  understand  between  whom  the  choice  is  to  be 
made,  and  is  quite  sure  that  it  is  merely  a  personal  contest, 
involving  no  political  principle.  The  fact  is,  so  much  has 
local  politics  become  a  matter  of  intrigue  that  a  majority 
of  all  the  "movements"  are  now  carried  on  in  the  dark — a 
concealment  which  makes  them  virtual  conspiracies.  After 
the  election  in  this  State  in  1880  it  was  announced  by  the 
newspapers  that  the  Republican  primaries,  the  nominating 
convention,  and  the  subsequent  election  of  members  of  the 
Legislature  in  San  Francisco  had  all  been  carried  in  the 
interest  of  a  certain  candidate  for  United  States  Senator, 
and  yet  while  this  work  was  in  progress  the  mass  of  voters 
were  in  profound  ignorance  of  the  whole  scheme.  The  vast 
and  complicated  intrigue,  wire-pulling,  and  log-rolling  nec- 
essary to  accomplish  this  result  had  been  carried  on  under 
the  very  noses  of  the  voters  without  exposing  what  was 
in  progress.  Such  things  are  a  remarkable  example  of  what 
can  be  accomplished  in  secrecy  in  this  age  of  newspapers 
and  supposed  universal  publicity. 

Under  such  conditions  as  these,  the  average  voter  prefers 
not  to  vote  at  all  at  primaries,  and  I,  for  one,  say  he  does 
exactly  right.  Rather  than  not  vote  understandingly,  a 
person  had  better  not  vote  at  all.  "The  sacred  obligation 
of  the  ballot"  has  been  so  cried  up  that  a  majority  of  writers 
and  public  speakers  seem  to  consider  it  a  merit  to  vote 
at  random  rather  than  not  at  all.  But  there  is  no  virtue  in 
the  mere  act  of  voting,  as  such.  If  the  quality  is  the  same, 
a  large  vote  is  no  better  than  a  small  one;  a  full  vote,  if 
it  is  not  an  intelligent  one,  has  nothing  in  it  preservative  of 
a  republic. 

It  is  evident  that  the  main  difficulty  in  the  primaries  lies 
a  long  distance  back.  Even  if  every  voter  knew  exactly 
the  sentiments  of  each  of  the  would-be  delegates  to  the 
convention  toward  every  declared  candidate,  there  would 
still  remain  two  serious  obstacles.  First,  the  candidates 
are  generally  unknown  men,  selected  from  mercantile  or 
other  pursuits  in  which  they  have  not  come  prominently 
before  the  people,  and  consequently  their  relative  fitness  for 


22  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  various  positions  is  unknown.  The  newspaper  discussion, 
which  the  Nation  truly  says  is  the  principal  guide  to  the 
voter  at  the  general  election,  affords  no  assistance  at  the 
primary,  for,  except  in  occasional  instances,  it  has  no  exist- 
ence. The  party  newspapers  do  not  care  to  criticise  un- 
favorably the  men,  whom,  by  the  decision  of  the  conven- 
tion, they  may  afterward  have  to  support  and  praise,  and 
consequently  they  keep  quiet  until  after  the  nominations 
are  made,  when  they  declare  that  they  are  all  excellent, 
and  it  is  left  for  the  opposition  or  independent  papers  to 
point  out  the  defects  in  the  ticket. 

Secondly,  if  the  voter  knew  just  the  candidates  he  wished 
to  vote  for,  and  the  delegates  he  must  support  to  do  it  in 
each  particular  instance,  he  is  still  involved  in  perplexities 
occasioned  by  the  multitude  of  offices  to  be  filled.  He 
may  be  able  to  make  up  a  ticket  of  delegates  who  will  all 
be  favorable  to  any  one  of  the  candidates  he  desires  to  see 
nominated,  but,  such  is  the  variety  of  opinions,  he  will  find 
it  impossible  to  compose  a  list  of  delegates  who  will  be 
unanimously  favorable  to  his  choice  for  every  one  out  of 
the  twenty-five  or  thirty  offices  to  be  filled. 

All  this  only  illustrates  the  practical  difficulties  in  the 
working  of  the  best-devised  system  of  political  machinery, 
and  emphasizes  the  fact  that,  after  all,  the  great  reliance  of 
the  voter  for  good  party  nominations  is  on  his  power  to 
bolt  and  defeat  the  party  when  it  makes  bad  ones.  This 
is  no  late  discovery.  Fisher  Ames  perceived  that  "one 
man  making  a  business  of  politics  can  have  more  influence 
than  six  who  do  not";  and  he  proclaimed  the  fact  before  this 
Government  was  twenty  years  old.  If,  with  the  additional 
experience  of  eighty  years  more,  all  our  editors  could  be 
brought  to  see  and  acknowledge  it,  we  should  hear  no  more 
in  support  of  that  stupendous  fraud,  "reform  within  the  par- 
ty."— Respectfully,  A.  B.  Nye. 

San  Francisco,  Jan  6,  1882. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  23 

Nation.  75:85-7.    July  31,  1902. 
Direct  Nominations. 

We  have  received  a  circular  urging  in  strenuous  terms 
the  merits  of  the  direct-nomination  system  for  party  pri- 
maries. From  this  circular  we  learn  that  an  organized  effort 
will  be  immediately  begun  to  secure  the  adoption  of  this 
system  in  New  York,  through  an  appeal  to  the  next  Leg- 
islature to  enact  a  direct-nomination  law.  The  movement 
lends  a  new  interest  to  the  discussion  of  this  subject,  which 
is  now  attracting  wide  attention  in  the  Middle  West,  notably 
in  Wisconsin,  where  the  direct  primary  is  one  of  the  chief 
issues  of  the  State  campaign  just  opening. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  reform  in  the  method  of  nominating 
party  candidates  is  a  step  which  logically  follows  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  ballot  that  is  practically  honest  and  a  count 
that  is  practically  fair.  A  decade  and  a  half  ago,  practical 
reformers  were  devoting  themselves  to  securing  beneficial 
changes  in  the  ballot  systems  of  the  various  States.  In  1888 
Massachusetts  adopted  the  secret  ballot,  modelled  after  the 
Australian  system,  and,  in  the  year  following,  eight  other 
States  enacted  similar  laws.  The  two  essentials  of  the  new 
system  were  secrecy  of  voting  and  complete  official  super- 
vision and  control  of  the  ballot.  The  popularity  of  the 
reform  was  instantly  established,  and,  in  the  comparatively 
brief  period  since  this  beginning  was  made,  State  after  State 
has  fallen  into  line,  until  now  the  secret  ballot,  with  absolute 
official  supervision  and  control,  is  the  rule  in  almost  every 
section  of  the  Union. 

With  this  reform,  wherever  it  was  adopted  in  good  faith, 
practical  purity  of  the  ballot  was  established.  Intimidation 
did  not  cease,  of  course,  nor  violence,  nor  fraudulent  prac- 
tices of  the  grosser  sort;  but  there  was  no  more  voting  in 
"blocks  of  five,"  and  no  more  wholesale  purchasing  of  votes; 
ballot-box  stuffing  became  rather  a  tradition  than  a  prac- 
tice, and  successful  trading  was  rendered  well-nigh  impos- 
sible. 


24  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Probably  the  extreme  reformers  of  those  times  supposed 
that,  when  their  end  was  gained,  a  free  expression  of  the 
people's  will  would  result  from  every  election.  It  is  quite 
easy  to  fancy  them  speaking  in  terms  fully  as  extravagant 
as  those  used  by  the  writer  of  the  direct-nomination  cir- 
cular which  we  have  in  hand,  when  he  declares  that  "  it  is 
universally  admitted  that  the  primary  system  as  it  at  pres- 
ent exists,  is  responsible  for  all  of  the  political  evils  found 
in  our  municipal  governments."  But  when  the  secret  ballot 
was  established,  those  who  had  held  extravagant  views  of 
the  results  likely  to  follow  were  disappointed.  It  was  seen 
that  between  the  people  and  a  full  and  free  expression  of 
their  will  still  stood  the  bosses,  panoplied  with  the  ma- 
chinery of  caucus  and  convention.  Public  sentiment,  aroused 
by  exposures  of  extensive  election  frauds,  had  brought  about 
the  reform  of  the  election  laws.  Public  sentiment  now  be- 
gan to  demand  supervision  of  the  nominating  machinery. 

The  agitation  in  this  State  was  quite  as  widespread  and 
quite  as  effective  as  elsewhere.  In  1890  the  secret  ballot  was 
adopted,  and  other  reforms  followed,  notably  the  separation 
of  State  and  municipal  elections,  by  the  new  Constitution 
adopted  in  1894.  In  1898  the  demand  for  the  regulation 
of  party  as  well  as  of  election  machinery  found  its  first 
real  expression  in  the  laws  of  New  York,  and  this  was  fol- 
lowed by  important  amendments  in  1899,  establishing  the 
present  system  of  the  open  enrolment  and  the  open  primary, 
regulated  by  law  and  supervised  by  legally  constituted  offi- 
cials. 

Meantime,  another  system,  more  radical  in  its  nature,  was 
devised  in  the  West,  and  was  enacted  into  law  in  Minnesota, 
with  the  restriction  that  it  should  at  first  apply  ©nly  to 
Hennepin  county,  which  includes  Minneapolis.  This  was 
in  1898,  the  same  year  that  we  began  our  primary  reform. 
The  aim  was  to  abolish  the  party  caucus  or  convention 
altogether,  and  to  do  the  nominating  at  the  primary.  Can- 
didates for  party  nominations  declared  themselves  at  a  cer- 
tain period  before  the  primary.  Official  ballots  for  each 
party,  each  ballot  containing  the  names  of  all  the  prospec- 


//  OF  THE 

((  UNIVERSITY  I. 


25 

tive   candidates  of  that  party,  were  prepared  at  public  ex- 
pense.     On   entering   the   primary,   a   voter   was   handed   a/ 
ballot  of  each  party.     In  the  secret  booth   he   selected  the* 
party  ballot  which  he  wished  to  vote,  indicated  his  choice 
among  the  candidates  thereon,  and  returned  the  other  party 
ballot  unused,  voting  the  one  of  his  choice.     The  law  had 
its  first  trial  in  September,  1900. 

The  result  was  at  the  time  considered  satisfactory,  even 
inspiring.  The  circular  which  we  have  received  describes 
it  as  an  "unqualified  success."  Nevertheless,  a  very  bad  man, 
as  it  has  turned  out,  was  nominated  for  Mayor  by  the 
Republicans  and  was  elected.  It  is  now  alleged  that  the 
nomination,  even,  was  obtained  by  fraud.  At  any  rate,  the 
municipal  administration  placed  in  power  as  a  result  of 
the  election  of  that  year  has  recently  collapsed  in  exposure 
and  disgrace.  The  law  was  amended  by  the  last  Legisla-  v 
ture  so  as  to  prevent  voters  of  one  party  from  intruding  jj 
upon  the  party  of  another.  The  direct-nomination  system  ' 
proposed  by  the  dominant  Republican  faction  in  Wisconsin 
is  modelled  after  this  Minnesota  system.  It  was  strongly 
advocated,  two  years  ago,  when  Gov.  La  Follette  was 
elected,  and  the  Legislature  undertook  to  pass  a  measure 
aiming  in  this  direction,  but  the  result  was  not  satisfactory 
to  the  Governor,  and  he  vetoed  the  bill. 

As  to  the  worth  of  the  S3'-stem,  it  is  yet  too  early  to  speak 
with  certainty.  The  result  in  Minnesota  has  thus  far  wholly 
failed  to  fulfil  the  promises  of  its  advocates.  As  evidence 
that  the  people  everywhere  are  demanding  with  increasing 
force  to  be  permitted  to  conduct  their  government  without 
the  intervention  of  political  bosses,  the  agitation  is  un- 
doubtedly encouraging.  But,  granted  reasonable  safeguards, 
it  must  always  be  true  that  the  spirit  of  the  people  is  more 
important  than  the  system.  There  are  some  questions  about 
direct  primaries  which  are  yet  to  be  answered.  One  of  them 
is:  How  could  a  poor  man  conduct  his  preliminary  contest 
for  a  nomination,  with  the  prospect  of  another  expensive 
contest  for  election  to  follow?  Perhaps  this  and  other  ques- 
tions may  be  satisfactorily  answered,  and  perhaps  it  may  be 


26  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

wise  to  adopt  the  direct-nomination  system.  But  even  then 
it  must  be  the  spirit  and  activity  of  the  voters,  rather  than 
the  system,  which  will  prevent  the  evils  of  control  by  the 
bosses. 


Nation.  77:5-6.    July  2,  1903. 
Primary   Reform. 

Massachusetts,  which  has  always  been  a  leader  in  election 
reforms,  has  just  adopted  a  direct-nominations  law.  It  is 
to  go  into  operation  in  Boston  immediately,  and  to  be 
applied  to  other  cities  of  the  State  when  accepted  by  the 
local  authorities.  The  new  statute  provides  that  party  pri- 
maries shall  be  held  at  a  common  date  fixed  by  law,  and  at 
the  same  hours  and  places  in  the  various  districts.  The 
regular  election  officers  or  inspectors  are  to  attend,  and 
everything,  from  the  printing  of  the  ballots  to  the  counting 
and  preserving  of  the  vote,  is  as  official  as  on  election  day. 
Each  candidate  for  a  party  nomination  must  obtain  blank 
nomination  papers  from  the  secretary  of  his  organization, 
and,  in  order  to  be  placed  as  a  candidate  on  the  official 
ballot,  must  secure  a  limited  number  of  signatures — five  for 
a  ward  candidate,  and  five  for  each  ward  where  the  district 
involved  is  greater  than  this  unit. 

On  primary  day  the  elector  announces  the  party  in  whose 
nominations  he  chooses  to  participate,  retires  to  a  booth 
after  the  ticket  has  been  handed  him,  votes  in  secret,  and 
deposits  his  ballot  under  the  official  supervision  of  repre- 
sentatives of  both  parties.  For  the  first  year  there  will  be 
no  enrollment,  but  a  record  is  to  be  kept  showing  which 
party  the  voter  selected,  and  thereafter  he  may  not  par- 
ticipate in  a  primary  of  any  other  party  without  first  having 
his  previous  enrolment  annulled.  This  is  a  process  requir- 
ing ninety  days'  delay.  Manipulation  across  party  lines  is 
thus  effectually  checked. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  27 

Another  feature  of  the  new  law,  and  one  which  might 
well  be  applied  to  our  own  system,  provides  for  municipal 
parties,  and  permits  them  to  participate  as  such  in  the 
official  primary.  In  general,  the  law  provides  that  to  be 
recognized  as  a  party  an  organization  must  poll  a  certain 
per  cent,  of  the  vote  for  Governor,  but  exception  is  spe- 
cifically made  in  favor  of  organizations  of  citizens  taking 
part  only  in  municipal  affairs.  An  enrollment  in  one  of  the 
national  parties  does  not  prevent  an  elector  from  voting  in 
the  primary  of  one  of  these  municipal  organizations.  It 
should  be  noted,  of  course,  that  this  latter  provision  is  not 
as  confusing  in  Massachusetts  as  it  might  be  in  New  York, 
for  the  reason  that  in  Massachusetts  the  idea  of  separating 
national  and  State  from  municipal  elections  has  been  car- 
ried to  its  logical  conclusion,  the  municipal  elections  being 
held,  some  in  December,  and  some  in  the  spring,  instead  of 
at  the  time  of  the  general  election  in  November.  The  move- 
ment which  has  resulted  in  the  passage  of  this  law  in  Massa- 
chusetts has  been  thoroughly  non-partisan  in  its  nature. 
Leaders  of  both  of  the  two  great  parties  have  given  it  their 
support.  The  new  statute  bears  evidence  of  having  been 
carefully  drawn.  Especially  in  its  provisions  to  prevent 
corrupt  combinations  between  the  baser  elements  of  both 
parties,  there  are  evidences  that  the  experience  of  other 
States  has  been  carefully  studied. 

One  striking  feature  of  the  movement  for  direct  primaries 
is  the  rapidity  with  which  it  is  spreading.  Many  of  the 
Southern  States  have  long  observed  the  principle,  though 
the  element  of  official  regulation,  which  is  basic  in  the  sys- 
tems adopted  by  the  Northern  States,  has  been  for  the  most 
part  lacking  in  the  South.  We  are  chiefly  concerned,  how- 
ever, with  the  progress  which  has  been  made  in  States  where 
political  conditions  more  nearly  resemble  our  own.  Of 
these,  Minnesota,  Maryland,  New  Jersey,  and  now  Massa- 
chusetts, have  adopted  the  system  with  various  modifica- 
tions. Wisconsin  has  considered  it,  and  would  be  using  it 
to-day,  but  for  the  dissatisfaction  of  Gov.  La  Follette  with 
the  details  of  a  bill  passed  in  1902,  which  he  vetoed.  This 


28  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

year  he  had  no  chance  to  pass  on  a  primary  bill,  though 
this  was  one  of  the  chief  issues  of  his  campaign,  the  Senate 
effectively  blocking  all  attempt  to  change  the  convention 
plan  now  existing  in  Wisconsin.  There  are  indications,  also, 
that  Michigan  will  soon  join  the  ranks  of  States  having  the 
direct  primary. 

No  two  States  have  adopted  exactly  the  same  system,  but 
the  statutes  are  similar  in  that  they  provide  for  official  super- 
vision of  the  primary,  and  direct  voting  for  the  candidate 
without  the  intervention  of  delegates  or  conventions.  In 
New  Jersey  this  direct  voting  is  confined  to  candidates 
within  the  smallest  political  unit,  and  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  preserve  the  conventions  for  the  larger  nominations, 
electing  delegates  only  by  the  direct  plan.  Other  variations 
relate  to  the  matter  of  eligibility  of  electors  to  vote  in  the 
primary.  In  Minnesota,  which  was  the  pioneer  State  in 
adopting  the  direct  primary,  its  most  obvious  defect  was 
early  discovered.  The  thugs  of  both  parties  joined  to- 
gether in  Minneapolis  and  took  "Doc"  Ames  from  the  gutter 
to  nominate  him  for  Mayor.  To  forestall  similar  evils,  the 
Minnesota  law  has  been  amended  so  that,  when  challenged, 
an  elector  may  be  barred  from  the  primary  if  he  can  be 
shown  that  he  is  not  an  adherent  of  the  party  whose  ballot 
he  has  selected. 

In  Maryland,  on  the  other  hand,  the  election  officers  are 
required  to  state  to  the  voter  that  participation  in  the  pri- 
mary does  not  bind  him  to  support  the  candidate  named.  If 
the  Massachusetts  law  is  an  expression  of  the  latest  ten- 
dency in  this  matter,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  inclines  to  hold 
the  voter  more  and  more  strongly  in  his  choice  when  made. 
This  applies  to  the  primary,  not  to  the  election.  Any  obliga- 
tion to  vote  at  the  election  for  the  candidate  of  the  party  in 
whose  primary  he  participated  must  ever  lie,  of  course, 
solely  between  the  elector  and  his  conscience.  With  the  se- 
cret ballot  no  coercion  could  be  successful,  even  if  foolishly 
attempted. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  that  the  increasing  strength 
of  this  movement  in  other  States  must  profoundly  affect 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  29 

the  minds  of  our  own  citizens,  especially  in  New  York  city, 
where  both  parties  are  suffering  intensely  from  boss  rule. 
Some  of  the  best  features  of  the  system  which  is  so  rapidly 
growing  in  popularity,  we  have  possessed  in  this  State  since 
1898.  Our  primary  is  under  official  supervision,  and  no 
other  State  has  an  enrollment  system  equal  in  efficiency  to 
ours.  But  our  primary  unit,  nominally  the  election  district, 
is  in  fact  the  Assembly  district,  and  our  nominations  are  far 
from  being  made  by  the  people.  For  many  years  New  York 
led  in  the  matter  of  primary  reform.  Some  advance  steps 
must  soon  be  taken  unless  we  are  to  lag  behind. 


Nation.  79:290.  .October  13,  1904. 
Progress  of  Primary  Reform. 

In  the  present  status  of  the  direct-nomination  discussion 
in  this  country,  general  arguments  on  the  theory  should 
give  place  to  study  of  experiments  and  the  working  out  of 
safeguards  against  the  incidental  evils.  Primary  reform  is 
receiving  attention  in  a  number  of  States  this  year.  Oregon 
is  to  make  the  first  trial  of  a  direct-nomination  law  passed 
last  June.  In  Wisconsin  the  most  comprehensive  act  of  this 
kind  ever  proposed  in  a  Northern  State  will  be  submitted  to 
the  voters.  In  Illinois,  Charles  S.  Deneen,  the  Republican 
candidate  for  Governor,  is  strongly  advocating  legislation 
along  the  same  line,  and  declares  that  if  he  is  elected  with 
a  Republican  Legislature,  and  primary  reform  is  not  accom- 
plished, he  shall  consider  his  administration  a  failure.  Min- 
nesota and  Massachusetts  have,  within  the  last  fortnight, 
nominated  candidates  by  the  direct  primary. 

The  Minnesota  primaries  have  been  followed  by  the  usual 
criticisms,  which  point  out  three  objectionable  features: 
interference  with  one  party's  nominations  by  members  of 
the  other,  undue  advantage  to  men  whose  names  are  widely 


~0  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

known;  and  the  display  of  petty  prejudices.  The  St.  Paul 
Globe  asserts  that  the  voter  who  would  use  the  blanket 
ballot  provided  by  the  old  primary  law  to  vote  for  candidates 
of  the  other  party,  now,  under  the  amended  law  which  re- 
quires a  public  declaration  of  party  allegiance,  "just  as  un- 
blushingly  demands  a  ballot  of  the  party  to  which  he  does 
not  belong,  and  does  the  same  thing.  We  have  violated  the 
principle  of  secrecy  of  the  ballot,"  it  concludes,  "without 
any  gain  whatever."  The  Minneapolis  Journal  applies  the 
second  criticism  pointedly  to  the  overwhelming  victory  of 
the  extreme  "stand-patter,"  Congressman  McCleary.  Sev- 
enty-five per  cent,  of  the  Republicans  in  his  district  believe 
in  revision  downward,  it  says,  "and  with  a  decided  dip  at 
that."  There  was  a  sharp  fight  against  his  renomination. 
Yet  the  opposition  vote  was  only  a  few  hundred.  "The 
.people  of  the  Second  District  sacrificed  their  political  views 
in  a  political  campaign  for  the  personal  benefit  of  a  man 
they  knew  and  liked."  A  defeated  candidate  spoke  of  an- 
other weakness,  namely,  that  "a  candidate  has  small  chances 
of  winning  unless  his  name  ends  with  a  'son.'  "  This  is  the 
same  difficulty  that  was  met  in  the  aldermanic  primaries 
of  Boston  last  winter,  where  the  leaders  could  not  get  the 
Democratic  voters  to  nominate  any  candidates  who  did  not 
have  Irish  names. 

It  was  promptly  pointed  out,  to  the  discredit  of  the  pri- 
mary law,  that  the  notorious  "Doc"  Ames,  whom  the  most 
brazen  of  bosses  would  hardly  dare  to  offer  for  an  elective 
office,  and  who  probably  would  not  have  had  a  vote  in  an 
open  convention,  came  in  third  with  5,000  votes  in  one  of 
the  Congressional  fights.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  fair  to 
note  that,  by  this  same  primary,  the  Republicans  nominated 
for  Mayor  D.  Percy  Jones,  the  man  who,  as  president  of 
the  aldermen,  took  hold  and  cleaned  up  the  Minneapolis 
city  government  when  Ames  ran  away. 

The  direct  primary,  in  short,  is  neither  a  failure  nor  a 
panacea.  When  the  issues  are  clearly  defined,  and  the  eleo 
torate  is  interested  and  conscientious,  its  advantages  over 
the  convention  are  so  obvious  that  there  is  little  to  be  said 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  31 

on  the  other  side.  But  when  the  campaign  is  listless  and 
there  is  nothing  particular  to  vote  about,  the  nominations 
which  it  makes  are  no  better,  and  may  be  worse,  than  those 
which  an  enlightened  and  sagacious  leader  would  dictate. 
As  people  become  accustomed  to  the  direct  primary,  it  may 
work  better.  Voters  will  perceive  that  the  same  judgment 
is  necessary  in  the  primary  as  in  the  election  itself.  Mean- 
while there  are  details  deserving  attention. 

The  most  serious  difficulty  in  practice  has  been  to  prevent 
one  party  from  interfering  with  the  other's  nominations. 
Massachusetts  and  Minnesota  require  from  the  voter  a  dec- 
laration of  his  party  allegiance  at  the  polls.  There  has  been 
strong  objection  to  this  in  both  States,  and  conscientious 
men  have  refused  to  vote  on  account  of  it.  One  reason 
for  the  general  satisfaction  with  the  workings  of  the  direct 
primary  in  the  Southern  States  is  that  this  trouble  is  almost 
entirely  absent.  It  is  the  practice  in  many  localities  to  allow 
any  white  man  to  vote  in  the  Democratic  primaries.  Or- 
egon's new  law  requires  the  voter  to  enroll  at  the  spring 
election  in  order  to  take  part  in  the  fall  primaries.  There 
is  some  embarrassment  just  now  because  the  law  was  passed 
after  the  spring  election  and  no  one  had  the  chance  to  enroll. 
But  the  general  principle  is  that  of  the  law  in  New  York, 
which  demands  enrollment  for  the  primaries  so  long  before- 
hand that  the  contests  in  the  party  will  not  ordinarily  have 
shaped  themselves. 

The  framers  of  the  law  which  will  be  submitted  to  the 
referendum  in  Wisconsin  sought  to  avoid  the  declaration 
of  party  preference,  and  at  the  same  time  discarded  the 
blanket  ballot.  The  voter  will  enter  the  polling-place  and 
receive  from  the  clerks  a  bundle  of  ballots,  one  for  each 
party  important  enough  to  have  a  column  on  the  regular 
election  ballot.  He  will  mark  only  one  of  these,  but  will 
fold  them  all,  and,  passing  out,  deposit  the  marked  ballot 
in  one  box  and  the  unmarked  ballots  in  another.  The  in- 
clusiveness  of  the  law  may  be  its  strength.  It  applies  to 
the  Governor  and  all  State  officers,  county  officers,  members 
of  the  Legislature,  Representatives  in  Congress,  United  States 


32  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Senators,  and  party  committeemen.  It  is  believed  that  every 
voter  will  take  an  interest  in  the  contest  for  some  one  of 
these  positions,  and  will  therefore  not  throw  away  his  vote 
purely  to  embarass  the  other  side. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  proposed  Wisconsin 
law  is  that  relating  to  party  platforms.  It  provides  that 
the  candidates  for  State  offices  and  for  the  Legislature  shall 
meet  on  the  fourth  Tuesday  of  September,  and  there  adopt 
the  platforms  of  their  respective  parties.  The  theory  of  the 
convention  system  is  that  the  party  first  lays  down  its  prin- 
ciples and  then  selects  the  men  to  carry  them  out.  In  its 
immediate  workings  this  law  seems  to  put  men  above  poli- 
cies, though  undoubtedly  the  campaign  preliminary  to  the 
primary  will  bring  out  the  issues  sharply  enough — when 
there  are  any. 


Outlook.  57:790.    December  4,  1897. 
Primary  Elections. 

Prominent  citizens  of  New  York  and  Chicago  have  been 
interested  in  an  effort  to  secure  a  National  Conference  in 
this  city  during  December  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a 
reform  of  the  primary  election  laws.  Enough  progress  has 
been  made  to  show  not  only  that  the  municipal  reform  or- 
ganizations of  various  cities  are  ready  for  a  campaign  on  this 
subject,  but  also  that  the  officials  of  labor  organizations 
such  as  the  International  Typographical  Union  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  and  religious  or- 
ganizations such  as  the  Christian  Endeavor  Society  and  the 
Epworth  League,  are  much  interested  in  the  movement. 
More  encouraging  still,  perhaps,  is  the  fact  that  several 
political  leaders,  including  ex-Governor  Altgeld,  of  Illinois, 
and  Mayor  Quincy,  of  Boston,  are  heartily  in  favor  of  the 
proposed  changes.  The  minimum  demand  put  forward  is 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  33 

the  adoption  of  the  Kentucky  plan.  This  has  already  had 
five  years'  trial,  and  has  given  satisfaction  to  all  the  elements 
in  both  parties  opposed  to  machine  despotism.  Under  the 
Kentucky  law,  when  a  party  desires  to  hold  a  primary  elec- 
tion, notices  thereof  must  be  conspicuously  published,  giving 
days,  hours,  and  places,  and  every  citizen  is  entitled  to  vote 
who  at  the  last  registration  expressed  a  preference  for  the 
party  in  question.  The  law  provides  that  a  mere  preference 
is  all  that  the  voter  can  be  required  to  express,  and  thus  the 
machine  is  kept  from  disfranchising  at  the  primaries  the  in- 
dependent voters  who  will  not  pledge  themselves  to  support 
the  nominee  regardless  of  his  personality.  By  making  the 
voters'  list  at  the  primaries  correspond  with  the  registration 
list  at  the  last  election,  the  rolls  are  kept  purged  of  un- 
authorized names.  By  requiring  notices  of  the  primaries 
to  be  widely  published  it  is  made  impossible  for  the  ma- 
chines to  hold  "snap"  primaries  at  which  only  professional 
politicians  are  present.  These  requirements,  when  supple- 
mented by  an  Australian  ballot  on  which  independent  candi- 
dates are  presented  to  the  voters  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
machine  candidates,  enable  the  body  of  the  voters  to  get  the 
candidates  of  their  choice.  Even  without  this  supplement 
the  Kentucky  plan  is  a  great  advance  upon  that  under  which 
the  machine  usually  governs. 


Outlook.  57:943-5.    December  18,  1897. 
A    Necessary    Reform. 

The  remedy  for  the  evils  of  democracy  is  more  democ- 
racy; for  in  almost  all  cases  those  evils  grow  out  of  a  disre- 
gard of  democratic  principles.  Whatever  our  opinion  re- 
specting the  nature  of  government,  we  ought  to  be  able 
to  agree  to  the  general  proposition  that  every  government 
should  be  founded  on  some  homogeneous  principle.  The 


34  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

government  may  be  monarchial;  then,  whatever  limits  are 
put  upon  the  monarch,  they  ought  not  to  be  such  as  to 
relieve  him  from  responsibility.  A  bureaucratic  government 
which  calls  itself  monarchial  is  bad  because  it  is  founded 
on  false  pretense.  The  government  may  be  aristocratic — 
government  by  the  best.  Then  care  should  be  taken  to  pro- 
vide some  method  of  selecting  the  really  best — method  of 
hereditary  authority,  or  intellectual  preparation,  or  prop- 
erty qualification.  A  nominal  aristocracy  really  governed  by 
Demos,  through  the  operation  of  fear  of  Demos  if  his  wishes 
are  thwarted,  is  thoroughly  bad;  because  it  also  is  a  gov- 
ernment founded  on  false  pretense.  So  if  the  government 
is  or  pretends  to  be  democratic — government  by  the  people — 
it  should  really  be  democratic.  If  the  authority  is  nominally 
vested  in  the  people  and  really  exercised  by  an  oligarchy, 
it  will  have  all  the  evils  and  none  of  the  benefits  of  either 
the  oligarchy  or  the  democracy.  There  will  be  no  one  who 
can  be  held  responsible  for  the  vices  of  bad  government,  and 
no  one  who  can  be  called  on  to  correct  them.  The  oligarchy 
will  charge  the  defects  of  administration  on  the  ignorance 
and  incompetence  of  the  people;  and  the  people  will  grow 
hopeless  because  helpless,  and  submit  in  a  stolid  despair  to 
abuses  which  are  charged  upon  them,  but  which  they  know 
not  how  to  reform. 

Into  this  condition  we  have  drifted  in  America.  All  the 
greater  evils  which  have  imperiled  the  Nation  are  due  to 
a  palpable  disregard  of  democratic  principles  even  while 
we  were  loudly  professing  those  principles.  Slavery,  seces- 
sion, and  the  Civil  War  were  clearly  and  unmistakably 
due  to  our  repudiation  of  the  principles  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  our  allowing  political  power  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  slaveholding  oligarchy  to  whom  North 
and  South  were  for  a  time  alike  subservient.  The  debased 
and  corrupt  government  of  our  great  cities  has  been,  not 
cured,  but  aggravated,  by  a  disregard  of  that  principle  of 
local  self-government  which  is  the  foundation  of  the  Amer- 
ican Republic,  and  which  distinguishes  American  democracy 
from  that  of  England  and  still  more  markedly  from  that  of 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  35 

France.  Our  partisan  politics  have  grown  corrupt  because 
our  parties  are  no  longer  organizations  controlled  by  the 
voters,  but  organizations  skillfully  manipulated  so  that  the 
voters  are  controlled  by  leaders,  sometimes  for  personal, 
sometimes  for  party  ends.  A  striking  illustration  of  this 
fact  is  afforded  just  now  in  the  condition  of  affairs  in  New 
York  City.  The  people  have  voted  in  favor  of  a  Rapid 
Transit  system  to  be  built  at  the  expense  of  the  city.  A 
Commission  has  been  appointed  and  has  prepared  and  per- 
fected the  plans.  These  are  to  be  passed  on  finally  by  the 
Supreme  Court.  And  now  the  press  is  discussing  the 
question  whether,  if  the  plans  are  approved,  Mr.  Croker  will 
allow  the  building  of  the  road  to  be  begun.  Mr.  Croker  holds 
no  office  in  New  York  City;  his  opinion  has  not  been  asked 
by  the  people  of  the  city;  he  has  no  official  authority  of  any 
description  in  the  premises.  And  yet  the  press  apparently, 
and  probably  not  without  reason,  considers  that  the  pros- 
pects of  the  Rapid  Transit  system  depend  on  his  imperial  de- 
cree. This  is  not  democracy.  It  is  the  form  of  democracy 
without  its  power.  It  is  the  government  of  one  man  masked 
as  the  government  of  the  many. 

We  repeat,  we  do  not  here  discuss  the  question  whether 
government  by  one  man  or  by  the  many  is  the  more  desir- 
able. What  certainly  is  not  desirable  is  a  government  which 
pretends  to  be  the  one  and  really  is  the  other.  At  present 
our  theory  is  government  by  the  people.  Grant  that  this  is 
but  an  experiment;  grant  that  all  that  Ruskin  and  Carlyle 
and  Matthew  Arnold  and  Sir  Henry  Maine  and  Mr.  Lecky 
have  said  about  democracy  is  true.  Nevertheless,  we  have 
gone  too  far  in  the  experiment  to  retreat  until  we  have  given 
it  a  fair  trial.  And  a  system  in  which  the  people  are  not  able 
to  exercise  any  real  choice  in  determining  who  their  candid- 
ates shall  be,  in  which  their  power  is  confined  to  a  choice  be- 
tween candidates  picked  out  for  them  by  oppugnant  oligar- 
chies, is  not  a  democratic  system.  This  is  not  government  by 
the  people.  This  is  government  by  oligarchies  with  a  veto 
power  lodged  in  the  people.  The  failure  of  this  system  is  not 


36  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

to  be  charged  to  democracy,  because  this  is  not  a  democratic 
system. 

In  our  judgment,  the  most  important  of  all  political  re- 
forms is  that  to  which  our  correspondent,  Mr.  Frank  M. 
Brooks,  calls  attention  in  an  article  on  another  page.  This 
is  not  saying  that  his  particular  method  of  reforming  our 
nominating  system  is  the  only  method  or  the  best  method. 
What  we  here  urge  is,  not  any  particular  method,  but  the 
necessity  of  reform,  and  the  end  to  be  accomplished  by  it. 
That  end  is  very  clear;  it  is  actual  participation  of  all  the 
people  in  making  nominations.  The  necessity  for  such  par- 
ticipation is  very  clear;  without  it  we  have  only  the  form, 
not  the  reality,  of  democracy.  The  failure  of  past  methods 
is  very  clear.  History  has  demonstrated  two  facts:  first,  that 
the  people  will  not  attend  the  primaries,  as  at  present  consti- 
tuted; and,  second,  that  they  accomplish  very  little  if  they 
do.  Some  plan  of  connecting  registration  with  nomination 
appears  to  us  the  one  most  hopeful  of  result;  and  this  is  of 
the  essence  of  Mr.  Brooks's  plan.  Still,  we  are  inclined  to 
think  that  this  plan  can  be  improved  upon  in  the  direction  of 
greater  simplicity.  We  are  doubtful  about  the  expediency 
of  multiplying  oaths;  there  are  so  many  already  that  the  oath 
has  lost  its  sanctity.  But  even  if  no  single  feature  of  Mr. 
Brooks's  plan  should  be  finally  adopted,  its  presentation 
would  be  of  advantage.  Already  the  people  are  beginning 
to  feel  restless  under  the  control  of  politicians,  who  should 
be  their  servants,  not  their  masters.  Already  they  are  pre- 
pared to  consider  any  carefully  devised  plan  which  would 
take  the  power  of  nomination  from  the  hands  of  Platt  and 
Croker,  and  confer  it  upon  the  voters  who  must  elect.  What 
they  want  is  some  definite  and  feasible  plan  by  which  to  ac- 
complish this  result. 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  37 

Outlook.  57:950-2.    December  18,  1897. 

The  Nominating  Ballot.    F.  M.  Brooks. 
The  Primary  Method  a  Failure. 

All  American  citizens,  especially  those  who  have  taken  an 
active  interest  in  politics,  have  probably  realized  that  the  pri- 
mary and  convention  method  so  generally  followed  in  nom- 
inating candidates  for  public  offices  is  not  only  far  frojn  be- 
ing what  it  was  originally  intended,  but  has  long  ago  out- 
lived its  usefulness.  The  unit  of  organization  for  both  of 
the  two  great  parties  of  our  country  is  the  primary  organiza- 
tion, to  which  all  voters  interested  should  belong  and  par- 
ticipate in  the  selection  of  candidates  for  offices  representing 
the  principles  of  their  party. 

The  average  citizen,  however,  does  not  join  the  primary 
organization,  but  learns  from  his  newspaper  that  "parties" 
have  placed  men  in  nomination  for  important  public  offices 
whom  he  has  never  before  heard  of,  or  whom  he  has  reason 
to  believe  are  far  from  being  ideal  candidates  and  very  often 
bad  ones,  and,  while  censuring  his  party  for  making  such  nom- 
inations, will  still  cast  his  ballot  for  the  nominees  on  election 
day,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  the  nominees  are  the  regu- 
lar party  candidates,  and  there  are  no  others  for  whom  he 
can  consistently  vote.  On  the  other  hand,  the  comparatively 
few  citizens  who  attend  primary  meetings  as  a  duty  see 
most  of  them  conducted  in  the  interest  of  self-seeking  indi- 
viduals with  whom  political  intrigue  is  a  trade,  and  who  are 
willing  to  bargain,  betray  their  party,  break  pledges,  or  resort 
to  almost  any  means  to  secure  preference  and  political  pow- 
er, knowing  that  the  outside  public  will  be  ignorant  or  un- 
mindful of  the  methods  by  which  the  candidates  were  chosen. 

It  is  the  power  to  nominate  which  makes  the  "boss"  and 
the  "machine."  Bosses  cannot  control  the  voters.  They  con- 
trol and  get  their  power  from  delegates,  party  workers,  poli- 
ticians, office-holders  and  office-seekers.  Take  away  the 


38  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

power  to  nominate,  and  bosses  and  machines  will  cease 
to  exist.  Leaders  and  organizations  will  remain.  As  the 
primary  method  is  now  followed,  it  is  very  largely  an  instru- 
ment used  for  the  personal  advantage  of  practical  politicians 
and  office-seekers,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  devise  a  method 
better  adapted  to  answer  their  purpose. 

It  is  commonly  known  that  primary  organizations  are  open 
for  membership  to  every  voter  subscribing  to  the  rules  and 
regulations,  but  the  experiences  of  the  past  twenty-five  years 
has  proven  conclusively  that  the  large  majority  of  citizens 
will  not,  under  any  circumstances,  join  them;  and  notwith- 
standing the  appeals  of  the  press,  of  public  men,  and  of  those 
who  have  been  conspicuous  in  their  efforts  to  promote  good 
government,  the  lack  of  active  interest  in  political  organiza- 
tions is  apparent  to  every  one,  and  extends  to  every  part  of 
our  country  and  among  all  classes  of  people. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  voters 
do  not  participate  in  the  selection  of  candidates  for  office. 
Of  the  remaining  ten  per  cent,  at  least  one-half  are  office- 
holders or  office-seekers.  Any  attempt,  therefore,  to  per- 
petuate the  present  system  with  the  hope  of  securing  better 
candidates  for  offices  must  necessarily  prove  a  failure.  If 
we  judge  from  past  and  present  results,  it  has  not,  and  never 
has  had,  the  support  of  more  than  a  small  minority  of 
voters,  and  no  system  will  produce  satisfactory  results  which 
does  not  secure  the  active  co-operation  of  a  majority  of 
those  who  are  the  most  directly  concerned. 

The  Nominating  Ballot. 

The  object  of  this  article  is  to  advocate  the  use  of  a  Nom- 
inating Ballot  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  public 
office,  in  place  of  the  primary  and  convention  method,  with 
the  firm  belief  that  it  will  place  the  nominating  power,  in 
practice  as  well  as  theoretically,  where,  under  our  form  of 
government,  it  should  be.  The  right  to  nominate  belongs 
to  the  people  as  well  as  the  right  to  elect,  and  any  system  se- 
lected and  all  legislation  affecting  both  these  important  civic 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  39 

functions  should  insure  the  largest,  safest,  freest,  and  read- 
iest exercise  of  the  nominating  and  electing  power  by  the 
whole  people.  The  primary  method  is  complex,  indirect,  un- 
certain, open  to  unlimited  perversion  of  party  sentiment,  in 
actual  practice  represents  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  whole 
people  and  does  not  insure  a  large,  safe,  free,  and  ready  use 
of  the  nominating  power. 

The  nominating  ballot  is  to  be  used  on  registration  days. 
The  method  here  suggested  requires  that  any  number  of  citi- 
zens subscribing  themselves  under  oath  as  belonging  to  a 
particular  party,  and  who  are  in  sympathy  with  the  principles 
of  that  party,  and  who  voted  its  ticket  at  one  or  both  of  the 
last  preceding  general  elections,  or  have  become  entitled  to 
vote  since  the  last  general  election,  and  who  intend  to  sup- 
port its  candidates  may  petition  the  Board  of  Elections  to 
place  upon  a  nominating  ballot  the  name  of  any  citizen 
whom  they  wish  to  be  a  candidate  for  their  party  for  a  speci- 
fied office.  If  the  petition  be  signed  by  a  requisite  number 
as  may  be  provided  by  law,  the  Board  of  Elections  must  place 
the  name  of  the  candidate  proposed  under  the  name  of  the 
office  designated.  The  law  should  provide  that  more  than 
one  name  may  be  presented  from  the  same  party  for  each 
office,  the  names  representing  the  same  party  (should  there 
be  more  than  one)  being  placed  together. 

When  the  voter  registers,  they  are  handed  the  nominating 
ballot,  and,  entering  the  booth,  select  their  party  candidate 
from  among  the  names  contained  upon  the  nominating  bal- 
lot, by  placing  a  cross  before  their  choice.  The  name  of  the 
person  receiving  the  highest  number  of  votes  in  each  party 
for  each  office  is  placed  upon  the  official  voting  ballot  in 
the  party  column  by  the  Board  of  Elections,  as  the  recognized 
party  candidate  to  be  voted  for  on  election  day. 

As  there  are  several  registration  days,  the  box  containing 
the  nominating  ballots  should  be  retained  by  the  Police  De- 
partment until  after  the  last  registration  day,  when  the  bal- 
lots should  be  counted  by  the  registry  clerks  and  the  re- 
turns forwarded  to  the  Board  of  Elections.  Should  the  candi- 
dates selected  be  unsatisfactory  to  any  considerable  number 


40  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

of  voters,  independent  nominations  could  be  made  as  pre- 
scribed by  the  existing  election  law. 

The  nominating  ballot  will  give  the  opportunity  to  every 
person  who  registers  to  indicate  his  choice  as  to  whom  he  de- 
sires to  be  a  candidate  for  each  office.  As  experience  has 
shown  that  more  people  register  than  vote,  it  would  seem  im- 
possible for  one  man  or  a  few  men  to  dictate  and  control  po- 
litical nominations  as  under  the  present  method,  and  any  at- 
tempt to  do  so  would  fail,  unless  a  large  proportion  of  the 
voters  of  the  party  concerned  indorsed  the  candidates  put 
forth. 


Renominations. 


One  of  the  greatest  objections  to  the  primary  and  conven- 
tion method  of  nominating  candidates  is  that  citizens 
elected  to  public  office  who  naturally  find  public  life  more 
or  less  congenial,  and  have  an  honest  ambition  to  serve  their 
fellow-men,  are  compelled  to  shape  their  official  actions  to 
win  the  favor  of  the  men  who  control  nominating  conven- 
tions, in  order  to  secure  a  renomination.  On  the  other  hand 
no  matter  how  badly  an  official  may  serve  his  constituency, 
no  matter  how  much  he  neglects  the  interests  of  the  people, 
as  long  as  he  retains  friends  in  the  nominating  contingent 
and  his  official  actions  satisfy  them,  he  secures  a  grip  from 
which  the  general  public  are  usually  powerless  to  dislodge 
him. 

On  the  contrary,  should  he  study  the  interest  of  the  peo- 
ple in  his  official  action  and  displease  the  nominating  con- 
tingent, the  chances  are  that  he  will  at  the  first  opportunity 
be  retired  to  private  life  and  never  regain  official  position. 

The  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  the  public  officials  from 
politicians  and  those  who  possess  vested  interests  is  continu- 
ous and  most  difficult  to  resist.  "Stand  by  the  organization 
and  the  organization  will  take"  care  of  you"  is  the  sentiment 
controlling  the  actions  of  a  very  large  number  of  public  of- 
ficials. Herein  lies  the  secret  which  gives  the  bosses  arfd  the 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  41. 

machines  such  great  power.  The  nominating  ballot,  in  most 
cases,  would  prevent  the  return  of  any  man  to  office  who  had 
already  sacrificed  the  interest  of  the  people  to  that  of  the 
"boss"  or  the  "machine."  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  assume  that  the  faithful  and  energetic  performance 
of  public  duty  on  the  part  of  a  public  official  would  always 
receive  recognition  from  enough  citizens  of  his  party  to  re- 
quest a  renomination  by  the  use  of  the  nominating  ballot. 

Only  when  the  power  to  make  or  break  public  officials 
openly,  directly,  or  publicly  is  fully  exercised  by  the  whole 
people,  can  good  government  be  secured. 


Outlook.  58: 176-7.  January  15,  1898. 
The  Nominating  Ballot.     L.  G.  McConachie. 

Having  recently  written  out  a  plan  for  political  party  nom- 
inations, the  writer  was  pleased  to  find  in  The  Outlook  im- 
mediately thereafter,  Mr.  F.  M.  Brooks's  article  entitled  "The 
Nominating  Ballot."  The  remedies  thus  arrived  at  independ- 
ently were  identical  in  their  main  idea,  but  differed  in  detail 
to  such  an  extent  that  I  venture  to  submit  mine  as  possibly 
supplementing  or  offering  an  alternative  to  that  of  Mr. 
Brooks.  It  follows  hereupon: 

Let  the  judges  of  a  primary  election  make  return  of  the 
votes  cast  for  each  candidate  for  nomination  to  any  partic- 
ular office,  listing  the  names  in  order  from  the  one  receiving 
the  largest  to  the  one  receiving  the  least  number.  For  con- 
venience, the  illustration  may  be  confined  to  the  choice  of 
an  alderman: 

For    Democratic  Alderman  from  the  Seventh  Ward 

James  Baker 61  votes 

Patrick   Burns 55  votes 

Stuart  Williams 53  votes 

John  Curtis 44  votes 

Warren  Graham 25  votes 


42  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Let  the  law  declare  that  the  three  highest  of  these  names 
shall  be  printed  under  the  party  heading  upon  the  official 
ballot  at  the  succeeding  contest  between  the  parties.  The  bal- 
lot may  take  the  following  form: 

For  Alderman  from  the  Seventh  Ward 
Democratic  Republican 

James  Baker  (61)  David  Carson  (40) 

Patrick  Burns  (55)  Franklin  Hale  (21) 

Stuart  Williams  (53)  John  Frazer  (18) 

Each  voter  at  this  general  election  should  signify  by  a  cross 
his  choice  of  one  out  of  all  the  candidates  for  Alderman. 
The  result  may  be: 

For  Alderman  from  the  Seventh  Ward 

Democratic  Republican 

James  Baker 106  David  Carson 90 

Patrick   Burns 200  Franklin  Hale 197 

Stuart  Williams 66  John  Frazer 158 

Total 372  445 

The  party  polling  the  largest  total  vote  may  by  the  law 
be  entitled  to  the  office,  and  that  one  of  its  three  candidates 
receiving  the  highest  vote  may  be  the  nominee  elected.  Thus, 
in  the  above  illustration,  the  Republican  having  cast  four  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  ballots  to  three  hundred  and  seventy-two 
cast  by  the  Democrats,  have  elected  Franklin  Hale,  who  has 
received  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  votes  to  one  hundred 
and  fifty-eight  for  John  Frazer  and  ninety  for  David  Carson. 

Mr.  Brooks's  method  having  secured  nominees  for  the  pri- 
mary election  by  giving  the  right  of  suggesting  each  of 
them  to  a  prescribed  minority  number  of  the  party's  mem- 
bers, the  plan  here  suggested  would  amplify  the  principle 
down  to  the  final  stage  of  choice.  The  interval  between  the 
two  elections  would  provide  time  for  a  sober  second  thought 
as  to  the  merits  of  the  candidates.  To  insure  success,  pres- 
entation by  each  party  of  the  full  list  of  three  names  ought 
to  be  imperative.  The  mere  necessity  of  making  a  choice 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  43 

among  these  three  would  induce  thoughtful  preparation  by 
the  voter.  The  final  election  with  its  larger,  fuller  poll  of 
votes  might  often  show  a  man  who  had  stood  third  in  the 
primary  to  be  really  first  in  the  esteem  of  the  party's  rank 
and  file.  Such  a  contingency  would  react  upon  the  primary 
to  a  general  raising  of  the  tone  of  nominations. 


Outlook.  58:266-8.  January  29,  1898. 
Primary  Election  Reform. 

The  National  Conference  in  this  city  last  week  on  the  re- 
form of  primary  elections  was  full  of  life  from  start  to  finish. 
This  life  was  chiefly  due  to  the  growth  of  machine  misrule 
during  the  last  few  years.  As  usual,  our  worst  enemies  have 
proven  our  best  friends,  and  the  recent  excesses  of  bossism 
are  primarily  responsible  for  the  sudden  public  awakening  to 
the  fact  that  in  our  cities  popular  government  has  become  a 
farce,  and  that  the  present  system  is  government  by  the  ma- 
chine and  for  the  machine  and  the  corrupt  forces  which  supply 
it  with  the  sinews  of  war.  The  public  conviction  that  some- 
thing must  be  done  manifested  itself  not  only  in  the  speeches 
of  the  reformers  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  also  in 
those  of  the  practical  politicians  present.  For  example,  Mr. 
Edward  Lauterbach  (Mr.  Platt's  right-hand  man  in  this  city) 
admitted  that  a  more  open  primary,  guarded  by  law  against 
fraud  on  the  part  of  those  in  charge,  must  now  receive  the 
support  of  the  Republican  machine  in  this  State.  Mr.  Lauter- 
bach himself  protested  against  some  of  the  concessions 
which  were  to  be  made,  but  he  admitted  that  the  change  of 
public  sentiment  made  concessions  necessary. 

The  opening  address,  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Milholland,  of  this  city, 
brought  out  sharply  some  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  pres- 
ent system.  The  Platts  and  the  Crokers,  said  Mr.  Milhol- 
land, are  not  to  be  blamed  because  they  exercise  the  power 


44  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

which  is  put  into  their  hands;  it  is  the  system  which  gives 
them  their  power  that  must  be  attacked.  The  seat  of  their 
power  is  their  ability  to  control  the  primaries.  Let  that 
power  be  restored  to  the  general  body  of  citizens  and  "polit- 
ical oligarchy  is  driven  from  its  last  stronghold."  The  Aus- 
tralian ballot  system  has  practically  put  an  end  to  the  de- 
bauchery of  voters  at  the  general  elections.  It  must  logically 
be  succeeded  by  a  reform  which  will  put  an  end  to  these 
evils  in  the  primaries.  Mr.  Samuel  B.  Capen,  President  of 
the  Municipal  League  of  Boston,  who  followed  Mr.  Milhol- 
land,  dwelt  upon  the  fundamental  evil  of  the  present  system — 
the  political  apathy  it  engenders.  It  is  not  ignorance,  he 
said,  that  we  have  most  to  fear,  but  indifference;  and  the 
public  indifference  is  due  to  the  fact  that,  even  if  aroused, 
the  ordinary  voter  can  accomplish  next  to  nothing  in  the 
ordinary  primary.  The  primary,  he  said,  must  be  made  in 
law  what  it  is  in  fact — an  initial  election. 

This  principle  was  the  one  above  all  others  upon  which 
the  Conference  was  an  absolute  unit.  The  primary  election 
must  have  about  it  all  the  safeguards  of  a  regular  election. 
That  this  was  the  logical  development  of  our  system  was 
brought  out  with  great  force  by  Professor  Commons,  of 
Syracuse  University.  While  America  had  been  governed  by 
political  parties  since  the  close  of  Washington's  adminis- 
tration, said  Professor  Commons,  the  existence  of  political 
parties  was  not  even  indirectly  recognized  in  the  law  until 
after  the  Civil  War.  The  first  positive  recognition  of  parties 
came  with  the  Australian  or  official  ballot.  This  provided  that 
the  candidates  proposed  by  parties  should  have  their  names 
printed  at  the  expense  of  the  State.  It  thus  formally  gave 
to  parties  the  selection  of  those  who  should  hold  public  office. 
When  this  is  done,  and  parties  are  made  a  constituent  of 
the  government,  every  citizen  has  as  inalienable  a  right 
to  be  a  member  of  a  party  as  to  be  a  citizen,  and  the  public 
is  bound  to  secure  this  right, 

The  discussion  of  the  philosophy  upon  which  the  reform 
of  the  primaries  must  be  based  took  place  the  first  morning 
of  the  Convention.  In  the  afternoon  there  were  descriptions 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  45 

of  practical  experience  under  different  systems.  The  paper  of 
this  character  which  called  forth  the  most  enthusiasm  in 
the  Convention  was  that  of  Mr.  E.  J.  McDermott,  of  Louis- 
ville, who  was  formerly  the  Supervisor  of  Elections  for  the 
State  of  Kentucky.  Mr.  McDermott  described  the  Ken- 
tucky system,  the  success  of  which  came  vividly  before  the 
country  when  the  primaries  to  choose  Colonel  Breckinridge's 
successor  brought  out  a  vote  larger  than  in  an  ordinary 
election,  and  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  dishonored  Con- 
gressman in  spite  of  the  support  he  received  from  most  of 
the  politicians  of  the  district.  The  central  feature  of  the 
Kentucky  system  is  that  the  voters  vote  directly  for  the 
party  candidates  and  not  for  delegates  to  a  nominating  con- 
vention. This  system,  says  Mr.  McDermott,  makes  it  indefi- 
nitely easier  for  the  citizens  not  backed  by  the  machine  to 
be  elected.  They  are  not  put  to  the  infinite  trouble  of  getting 
delegates  from  every  township  pledged  to  support  them,  nor 
to  the  further  difficulty  of  holding  the  delegates  to  their 
pledges  after  election.  The  machine  in  Louisville  is  espe- 
cially hostile  to  the  system  of  direct  primaries,  and  recently 
attempted  to  restore  the  convention  plan,  but  the  voters  would 
not  have  it,  and  the  machine  .was  obliged  to  submit.  Another 
feature  of  the  Kentucky  plan,  it  was  explained,  is  that  each 
voter  when  he  registers  is  asked,  though  not  required,  to 
state  with  which  party  he  "wishes  to  affiliate."  This  regis- 
tration gives  a  party  polling-list  that  is  always  up  to  date 
and  free  from  fraudulent  names.  It  does  not,  says  Mr.  Mc- 
Dermott, lessen  the  final  secrecy  of  the  ballot — except  as 
every  primary  election  held  anywhere  lessens  it.  In  1894,  at 
Louisville,  the  registration  stood  25,000  Democrats  to  15,000 
Republicans,  while  the  vote  at  election  stood  14,000  Demo- 
crats— a  loss  of  11,000 — to  18,000  Republicans,  a  gain  of 
3,000.  In  1896  the  changes  were  nearly  as  great  between  the 
vote  at  registration  and  the  vote  at  election.  The  provision 
for  registration,  therefore,  does  not  sensibly  lessen  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  voters  at  the  final  balloting.  Mr.  McDermott 
closed  with  an  eloquent  appeal  for  the  principle  of  direct 
primaries.  The  system,  he  says,  which  takes  away  from 


46  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

every  citizen  his  right  to  an  equal  share  in  the  selection  of 
public  officials  takes  away  from  his  birthright  as  an  American 
citizen. 

Mr.  McDermott's  account  of  the  Kentucky  system  was 
followed  by  an  interesting  account  of  the  various  Pennsyl- 
vania systems  by  Mr.  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  National  Municipal  League.  The  Crawford 
County  System  in  Pennsylvania,  as  our  readers  know,  is  a 
system  of  direct  primaries  not  unlike  that  in  Kentucky.  The 
names  of  all  candidates  for  party  nominations  are  submitted 
directly  to  all  the  voters  of  the  party.  This  system  does  not 
get  rid  of  party  leaders,  but  it  compels  party  leaders  to  pro- 
pose candidates  who  will  get  the  support  of  the  majority 
of  the  voters  in  order  to  retain  their  leadership.  The  system, 
however,  though  it  had  its  origin  in  Pennsylvania,  is  not  more 
common  in  that  State  than  in  Ohio  and  in  the  States  West.  In 
many  parts  of  Pennsylvania,  and  particularly  in  Philadelphia, 
the  primaries  are  almost  wholly  under  the  control  of  the  bos- 
ses. Even  in  Philadelphia,  however,  said  Mr.  Woodruff,  the  at- 
tendance at  the  primaries  is  much  larger  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  A  recent  investigation  by  a  student  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  has  shown  that  in  many  wards 
nearly  as  many  citizens  attend  the  primaries  as  vote  at  the 
general  elections.  The  Massachusetts  system  of  primaries 
was  also  described,  and  one  of  its  provisions  seemed  to  meet 
with  substantially  the  unanimous  approval  of  those  present. 
This  was  the  provision  that  the  names  of  all  candidates 
should  be  printed  without  discrimination  upon  official  ballots. 

On  the  second  day  of  the  Convention  Mr.  Rush,  of  the 
Illinois  Legislature,  described  the  primary  reform  measure 
he  had  introduced  in  that  body.  His  bill  gives  each  party 
the  right  at  public  expense  to  hold  a  primary  before  each 
election,  under  the  supervision  of  paid  public  officers  and 
under  the  regulations,  forms,  and  penalties  of  law.  Senators 
Brush  and  Ford,  of  this  State,  also  described  their  measures 
now  pending  at  Albany,  neither  of  which  was  championed  by 
its  author  as  more  than  a  short  step  in  the  right  direction. 
The  goal  to  be  worked  toward  was  set  forth  with  exception- 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  47 

al  power  by  Mr.  G.  L.  Record,  of  Jersey  City.  Mr.  Record 
described  humorously  but  seriously  the  years  he  had  worked 
in  the  Democratic  party  in  Jersey  City  to  reduce  the  power 
of  the  dominant  machine.  The  party,  he  said,  was  owned 
body  and  soul,  by  one  man  who  treated  it  as  his  private 
property.  The  great  body  of  the  voters  were  discontented 
with  this  domination,  but  were  obliged  to  submit  to  it  or 
else  leave  the  party.  Nearly  all  the  voters,  he  said,  knew 
whom  they  preferred  for  the  different  offices,  to  be  filled,  but 
had  no  choice  as  to  delegates  to  nominating  conventions. 
As  they  were  only  allowed  to  choose  delegates  at  the  pri- 
maries they  were  forced  to  be  indifferent.  Participation  in 
no  way  assured  that  the  candidates  they  desired  would  be 
elected.  His  experiences  had  forced  upon  him  the  conviction 
that  direct  primaries  must  be  substituted  for  nominating  con- 
ventions, that  the  names  of  candidates  must  be  printed  on 
an  official  ballot,  and  that  the  first  registration  day  should 
be  primary  election  day.  Mr.  Record  advocated  these  prin- 
ciples in  a  speech  which  called  forth  enthusiastic  applause 
from  those  present.  The  cardinal  point,  he  insisted,  was  that 
the  primaries  should  be  direct.  This  is  the  one  thing,  he 
said,  which  the  bosses  supremely  object  to,  and  the  one  thing 
that  is  supremely  necessary  to  the  democracy  and  the  purity 
of  our  election  system.  The  worst  kinds  of  candidates  now 
forced  into  public  office,  the  merely  rich  and  the  mere  dum- 
mies, could  not  be  selected  at  direct  primaries,  but  even  if 
they  were  their  career  in  office  would  be  an  entirely  different 
thing,  as  they  would  owe  their  allegiance  to  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  citizens  and  not  to  the  unseen  power  which  they  are 
now  bound  to  serve  or  be  relegated  to  private  life  at  the 
end  of  their  term. 

This  address  of  Mr.  Record's  laid  down  the  principles  to- 
ward which  many  of  those  present  felt  that  the  effort  of  re- 
formers must  be  directed.  Mr.  Edward  Lauterbach,  indeed, 
opposed  them,  and  Senators  Brush  and  Ford,  of  New  York 
State,  declared  that  they  were  years  in  advance  of  anything 
that  would  be  accepted  by  the  New  York  Legislature;  yet 
Mayor  Quincy  of  Boston,  expressed  the  belief  that  in  Massa- 


48  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

chusetts  the  times  were  ripe  for  just  such  reforms.  Already, 
said  Mayor  Quincy,  the  official  ballots  are  in  use,  and  are 
being  so  printed  as  to  give  the  name  of  the  candidate  for  im- 
portant offices  whom  the  delegates  voted  for  are  pledged  to 
support.  One  of  the  great  parties,  furthermore,  has  already 
formulated  the  demand  that  the  voters  shall  be  given  the 
privilege  of  voting  directly  for  the  candidates  of  their  choice. 
Wherever  there  is  registration,  said  Mayor  Quincy,  economy 
and  public  convenience  make  it  wise  that  registration  days 
and  primary  days  should  be  the  same  so  that  voters  should 
express  their  choice  for  candidates  when  they  come  to  regis- 
ter. Toward  the  accomplishment  of  these  reforms  the  Na- 
tional Primary  Election  League  organized  at  the  Conference 
will  undoubtedly  direct  its  efforts,  supporting  every  measure 
which  will  give  freer  expression  to  the  intelligence  and  con- 
science of  the  voters,  but  not  resting  until  the  choice  of  can- 
didates by  the  people  shall  be  as  free  from  the  domination 
of  the  machine  as  the  choice  between  candidates  has  already 
become  since  the  adoption  of  the  Australian  ballot. 


Outlook.  58:455-6.     February  19,  1898. 
Primary  Elections. 

The  Illinois  Legislature  has  passed  an  act  for  the  reform 
of  primary  elections  by  placing  upon  the  public  the  expense 
of  holding  them  and  putting  about  them  nearly  all  the 
safeguards  which  surround  regular  elections.  Any  political 
party  which  at  the  preceding  general  election  polled  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  entire  vote  has  the  privilege  of  holding 
primary  elections  under  the  provisions  of  the  act.  In  Chi- 
cago its  adoption  is  mandatory.  In  the  rest  of  the  State 
it  must  be  adopted  whenever  the  voters  so  decide.  The  bill, 
unfortunately,  contemplates  the  election  of  delegates  to 
nominating  conventions  rather  than  a  direct  vote  at  the 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  49 

primaries  upon  the  candidates  finally  to  be  chosen.  This, 
of  course,  was  a  concession  to  the  "machine,"  which  is 
everywhere  opposed  to  the  nomination  of  candidates  direct- 
ly by  the  voters,  but  believes  itself  able  to  "fix"  the  del- 
egates to  nominating  conventions,  even  if  the  elections  are 
fairly  held.  One  other  concession  which  the  Illinois  ma- 
chine demanded  but  did  not  obtain  is  worthy  of  especial 
attention.  Its  representatives  asked  that  the  election  dis- 
trict should  be  made  large,  and  of  course  pleaded  that  large 
districts  would  be  more  economical.  The  reformers,  however, 
saw  that  if  the  districts  were  made  large  the  regular  organ- 
ization could  control  them.  The  hope  for  independent  move- 
ment lies  in  small  districts,  which  a  few  energetic  men  in 
any  neighborhood  can  thoroughly  canvass  whenever  the 
machine  needs  to  be  disciplined.  Jefferson's  demand  that 
in  order  to  secure  democracy  we  must  "divide  the  counties 
into  wards"  must  not,  it  seems,  be  supplemented  by  the 
demand  that  we  "divide  the  wards  into  small  election  dis- 
tricts." Only  in  small  districts  can  ordinary  voters  quickly 
organize  so  as  to  make  their  protests  felt. 


Outlook.  58:753-4.    March  26,  1898. 

Primary   Law  in   Illinois. 

The  new  primary  law  in  Illinois  received  its  first  trial 
last  week  at  the  Democratic  primaries  in  Chicago,  and 
proved  itself  eminently  satisfactory.  It  did  not  draw  to 
the  polls  so  large  a  vote  as  some  of  its  friends  had  an- 
ticipated; but  even  in  this  regard  the  change  for  the  better 
was  so  great  that  the  candidates  named  .may,  in  nearly  every 
instance,  be  regarded  as  the  choice  of  their  party.  Under 
the  old  system  it  was  a  frequent  thing  for  nominations  to 
be  made  at  primaries  where  hardly  one  per  cent,  of  the 
voters  were  present;  but  last  week  between  thirty  and 


50  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

forty  per  cent,  were  present  in  most  of  the  wards,  and  in 
a  few,  where  there  was  a  close  contest,  as  high  as  sixty 
per  cent  were  present.  The  great  gain  from  the  new  sys- 
tem, however,  was  the  ability  of  every  one  who  came  to 
the  polls  to  cast  his  vote  without  interference,  and  with 
confidence  that  it  would  be  counted.  In  most  wards  the 
elections  passed  off  without  any  disturbance  whatever,  and 
the  day  was  one  of  extraordinary  quiet,  even  though  the 
saloons,  as  a  rule,  closed  only  their  front  doors  instead  of 
closing  entirely,  as  the  law  provided.  The  elections  were 
for  the  purpose  of  selecting  candidates  for  the  Board  of 
Aldermen  and  the  various  town  offices.  Alderman  Powers, 
of  National  ill-repute,  was  renominated  without  opposition, 
and  a  few  other  candidates  of  like  character  were  renom- 
inated in  spite  of  opposition;  but  these  renominations  were 
undoubtedly  with  the  consent  of  their  constituents,  and 
the  opposition  in  several  cases  was  so  strong  as  to 
promise  the  defeat  of  the  candidate  if  the  Republicans 
nominate  more  reputable  opponents.  In  several  wards 
the  machine  was  completely  unhorsed.  One  Alderman, 
who  was  the  body  and  soul  of  the  machine  in  his  ward, 
and  who,  under  the  old  system,  would  have  nominated 
all  the  judges  and  clerks  for  the  primary  election,  was 
badly  beaten.  The  Aldermen  who  made  a  good  record 
were  generally  renominated  without  difficulty,  though  sev- 
eral of  them,  says  the  "Times-Herald,"  would  probably  have 
been  defeated  under  the  old  system.  Altogether  the  exper- 
iment must  be  pronounced  singularly  successful.  If  the 
machine  governs  only  where  it  has  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  its  government  is  no  longer  a  despotism. 


Outlook.  59:411.    June  18,  1898. 

Primaries   in  New  York. 

The  first  Republican  primaries  held  in  this  city  under  the 
new    primary    election    law    resulted    in    an    overwhelming 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  51 

victory  for  the  faction  known  as  the  "regulars."  In  only  a 
few  districts — less  than  one  in  ten — did  the  opponents  of 
Senator  Platt's  supremacy  win.  Every  Republican  who  took 
the  trouble  to  be  enrolled  had  the  opportunity  of  casting 
his  vote  without  annoyance  or  serious  fear  of  fraud.  That 
the  anti-machine  vote  was  so  small  in  some  districts  where 
it  was  large  in  the  last  election  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  anti-machine  voters  did  not  take  the  trouble 
to  be  enrolled.  In  the  fall  this  difficulty  will,  we  hope,  be 
removed,  as  mere  registration  will  secure  enrollment;  but 
the  machine  element  will  still  have  an  advantage  in  the 
primaries  whenever  public  interst  is  low,  as  was  the  case 
last  week.  There  was  no  division  over  principles,  nor  over 
nominees  to  important  offices.  The  new  law  is  not  suffi- 
ciently radical  to  satisfy  those  who  believe  that  the  people 
should  nominate  as  well  as  elect,  since  it  does  not  permit 
the  voters  themselves  to  decide  who  shall  be  named  for 
important  offices.  They  can  merely  decide  who  shall  be  the 
delegates  to  nominating  conventions.  In  such  contests  the 
machine  almost  invariably  has  the  most  active  and  best- 
known  ward  workers  on  its  side,  and  the  election  of  the 
machine  ticket  is  almost  a  matter  of  course  unless  this  ticket 
is  extremely  obnoxious  to  local  sentiment.  The  new  pri- 
mary law  does  not  get  rid  of  machine  domination,  and  was 
not  intended  to.  It  merely  concedes  to  reformers  that 
machine  despotism  should  be  tempered  by  the  fear  of 
popular  sentiment ,  if  its  misrule  went  beyond  the  wide 
range  allowed  by  the  indifference  of  disinterested  voters. 
The  fact  that  the  new  Republican  County  Committee  has 
been  honestly  elected,  and  will  be  responsible  to  open  pri- 
maries in  the  future,  was  all  the  gain  promised  by  the  new 
law,  and  this  has  been  secured. 


Outlook.  59:411-2.     June  18,   1898. 

Primaries    in    Georgia. 
The  line   upon  which  further   progress   is   to   be   made 


52  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

was  brought  out  sharply  by  the  Georgia  Democratic  pri- 
maries, which  were  likewise  held  last  week.  For  the  first 
time,  this  year  the  candidates  for  State  offices  as  well  as  the 
candidates  for  Congress  were  chosen  directly  by  the  voters 
at  the  primaries.  The  result  was  an  election  in  which  the 
public  interest  was  nearly  as  great,  and  the  Democratic  vote 
quite  as  large,  as  in  the  regular  elections.  The  three  can- 
didates for  Governor  went  before  the  voters  stating  explicit- 
ly the  programmes  for  which  they  stood,  just  as  Congress- 
men and  local  officials  have  been  doing  for  years  past.  The 
outcome  is  that  the  candidate  for  Governor  is  really  the 
choice  of  the  voters,  with  pledges  made  to  them  and  bound 
to  look  to  them  and  not  to  the  machines  if  he  seeks  re- 
election. The  candidate  with  the  State  machine  back  of 
him — Governor  Atkinson's  brother — came  third  in  the  race. 
The  successful  candidate,  Mr.  Allan  D.  Candler,  is  a  man 
of  fine  private  character,  considerable  ability,  and  what  are 
deemed  moderate  views  upon  questions  of  monopoly.  As 
the  experience  of  South  Carolina  had  already  indicated,  men 
of  this  type  are  more  successful  in  direct  primaries  than  are 
more  radical  candidates.  The  great  body  of  voters  are  rarely 
united  upon  many  radical  propositions.  But,  quite  apart 
from  the  merits  of  Mr.  Candler  as  a  candidate,  the  fact 
that  the  power  of  the  machine  was  reduced  to  nil,  that  the 
voters  of  the  party  turned  out  almost  en  masse  to  the 
primaries,  and  that  the  candidate  is  really  the  choice  of 
the  people,  shows  that  the  way  to  overthrow  boss  dom- 
ination in  New  York  is  not  to  abandon  the  struggle  at 
the  primaries  but  to  give  the  primaries  direct  control  over 
the  selection  of  candidates,  and  so  make  it  a  privilege 
as  well  as  a  duty  for  every  citizen  to  attend  them. 


Outlook.  59:797.    July  30,  1898. 
The    Dark    Side    of   the    Direct    Primaries. 

To  the  Editors  of  the  Outlook: 
The   Outlook   is   an   ardent   advocate   of  nominations   by 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  53 

direct  vote  of  the  people,  and  will  therefore  doubtless  will- 
ingly open  its  columns  for  further  discussion  of  the  system. 

The  Republican  party  has  made  its  nominations  for  pub- 
lic office  by  direct  popular  vote  in  Cuyahoga  County,  Ohio, 
for  the  past  five  years.  This  is  the  county  in  which  the 
city  of  Cleveland  is  situated. 

The  local  press,  just  prior  to  the  holding  of  the  primaries, 
has  been  selfish  and  unpatriotic  to  such  a  degree  as  seri- 
ously to  impair  the  usefulness  of  this  plan  for  making  party 
nominations. 

For  the  fullest  efficiency  of  such  a  system,  the  public 
should  be  kept  fully  informed  as  to  the  history  and  qual- 
ifications of  the  aspirants  for  public  office.  There  is  no 
channel  through  which  such  information  can  be  so  well 
given  as  the  public  newspaper.  There  is  no  higher  service 
which  a  newspaper  can  perform  for  the  community  than  to 
impart  that  kind  of  information.  There  is,  therefore,  no 
higher  or  more  patriotic  duty  that  the  local  press  owes 
to  the  community  than  to  furnish  this  class  of  information. 
Instead  of  doing  this,  our  local  press  has  pursued  exactly 
the  opposite  course  for  the  five  years  past.  The  moment  a 
local  campaign  is  fairly  commenced,  that  moment  the  col- 
umns of  the  local  press  close  as  tightly  as  a  clam-shell, 
and  no  information  whatever  can  be  obtained  from  that 
source  by  the  public  as  to  any  of  the  candidates.  This 
"closed  season"  is  inaugurated  in  order  to  coerce  candidates 
into  paid  advertising,  if  they  wish  the  public  to  know  any- 
thing of  their  claims  or  fitness  for  public  office.  Candidates 
are  thus  induced  to  prepare  and  insert  in  local  papers  paid 
advertisements  containing  the  most  fulsome  eulogies  and 
commendations  of  themselves. 

It  has  often  happened  that  when  but  one  office  was  to 
be  filled,  some  newspaper  has  appeared  to  recommend  each 
of  a  half-dozen  men  as  being  the  fittest  man  for  the  office. 
All  this  because  each  has  paid  for  the  "space"  as  advertising 
matter.  But  be  it  known  that  the  amount  paid  is  ordinarily 
not  the  usual  advertising  rate;  for  when  a  political  campaign 
is  on,  advertising  "comes  high."  This  practice  leads,  of 


54  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

course,  to  a  large  use  of  money  in  securing  nominations, 
and  debars  a  man  of  conscience  and  of  moderate  means  from 
becoming  a  candidate  for  public  office.  The  influence  of  this 
course  has  been  most  marked,  especially  in  its  effect  upon 
nominations  for  judges  of  the  Common  Pleas  Court;  for 
since  the  adoption  of  the  popular  plan  for  making  nomina- 
tions, the  standard  of  fitness  for  that  bench  has  been  con- 
stantly falling. 

The  practical  results  flowing  from  this  system  of  primary 
election  have  led  many  of  our  best  citizens  to  think  it  not 
well  adapted  to  large  and  densely  populated  counties,  es- 
pecially in  the  selection  of  judges  of  the  courts.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  system  for  which  so  much  can  be  favorably  said 
in  theory  and  so  little  in  practice. 

Citizen. 


Outlook.   63:8-9.     September   2,   1899. 
Concurrent    Primaries. 

The  plan  of  "concurrent"  primaries  has  already  passed 
from  the  field  of  speculation  to  that  of  experiment.  The 
recent  primaries  in  San  Francisco  to  elect  Republican  and 
Democratic  candidates  for  Mayor  were  held  on  the  same 
day  and  in  the  same  booths.  The  results  were  most  sat- 
isfactory. The  Democrats  renominated  Mayor  Phalen, 
who  has  with  exceptional  courage  fought  the  machine  repre- 
senting the  worst  elements  in  his  party;  and  the  Republicans 
selected  a  candidate  possessing  in  a  high  degree  the  public 
confidence.  These  results  were  especially  important  because 
of  the  large  powers  lodged  in  the  Mayor  under  the  new 
charter.  In  Ohio  also,  where  a  reform  primary  law  has  been 
demanded  for  several  years,  the  plan  of  concurrent  primaries 
has  been  put  to  the  test.  In  the  spring  of  last  year,  Mr.  J. 
S.  Glenn,  of  Columbus,  writes  us,  the  local  Republican  and 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  55 

Democratic  commitees  were  persuaded  to  hold  an  unimpor- 
tant primary  jointly,  and  the  legislative  committees  on  pri- 
mary elections  were  invited  to  examine  the  workings  of 
the  plan.  In  describing  the  experiment  Mr.  Glenn  says: 

"There  were  to  be  elected  a  police  judge,  three  magistrates, 
and  four  constables,  besides  ward  officers.  The  set  of  Dem- 
ocratic judges  worked  by  the  side  of  their  Republican  col- 
leagues with  the  best  of  feeling.  As  the  voter  stepped  into 
the  booth  he  gave  his  name,  and  the  party  poll-book  which 
contained  it  showed  with  what  party  organization  he  reg- 
ularly affiliated.  On  the  ticket  given  him  appeared  the 
names  of  all  the  candidates  of  both  parties.  The  voter 
stepped  into  an  inclosure  and  marked  his  choice  in  secret — 
the  judge  of  his  party  casting  the  ballot  in  the  party  box. 
.  .  .  The  plan  was  found  to  work  like  a  charm.  The 'results 
showed  a  saving  of  $500  by  holding  the  primaries  conjointly 
instead  of  the  usual  way.  This  curtailment  of  the  expenses 
consisted  of  reduced  printing  bills,  single  hire  of  police 
guardians,  the  renting  for  a  single  time  of  88  polling-places, 
etc.  Members  of  one  party  could  not  vote  for  candidates 
on  the  other  party's  ticket,  and  there  was  public  confidence 
in  the  fairness  of  the  vote  and  of  the  count." 

The  new  plan  was  received  in  an  unfriendly  spirit  by  ward 
politicians,  and  was  somewhat  criticised  because  of  its  ex- 
clusion of  independents  from  the  privilege  of  voting;  but 
the  verdict  of  the  public,  and  also  of  the  legislative  com- 
mittees, was  in  its  favor.  The  continuance  of  the  agitation 
in  Ohio,  the  adoption  of  concurrent  primaries  in  Minneap- 
olis, and  their  recent  success  in  San  Francisco,  all  seem  to 
promise  that  in  the  near  future  nomination  day  may  rank 
with  election  day.  Certainly  the  choice  of  party  candidates 
is  often  more  important  than  the  choice  between  them. 


56  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Outlook.   60:146.   September   10,   1898. 
Direct   Primaries  in  South   Carolina. 

To  the   Editors  of  The  Outlook: 

The  "Primary  System"  has  been  elaborated  to  a  greater 
extent  in  this  State  (South  Carolina)  than  perhaps  anywhere 
else;  its  operations,  however,  being  confined  in  practice  to 
the  Democratic  party.  The  methods  are  these:  The  can- 
didates for  State  and  Congressional  honors  file  with  the 
State  Committee  a  statement  that  they  are  candidates  for 
certain  offices,  with  a  pledge  that  they  will  abide  by  the 
result  of  the  primary.  The  State  Committee  then  arranges 
a  series  of  campaign  meetings  to  be  held  at  the  several 
county  seats,  and  the  candidates  go  upon  the  circuit,  and  at 
these  meetings  set  forth  their  claims  and  qualifications,  and, 
if  so  disposed,  attack  the  records  and  qualifications  of  their 
fellow-candidates.  The  candidates  for  county  and  legis- 
lative positions  file  a  similar  statement  and  pledge  with 
the  County  Committee,  who  also  arrange  a  series  of  meet- 
ings throughout  the  county.  Almost  invariably  the  candi- 
dates publish  a  card  in  the  public  prints  announcing  their 
candidacy.  The  primary  elections,  which  are  held  after  the 
series  of  State  and  county  campaign  meetings  are  closed,  are 
regulated  to  a  certain  extent  in  their  procedure  by  a  statute. 
All  offices,  appointive  as  well  as  elective,  are  thrown  into  the 
primary,  and  the  wishes  of  the  voters  as  expressed  thereat 
are  respected  by  the  Governor  and  Legislature.  The  news- 
papers treat  the  candidates  fairly,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
have  not  practiced  any  extortion,  as  in  the  Ohio  case  men- 
tioned in  a  recent  issue  of  The  Outlook.  The  tickets  for 
the  State  offices  are  printed  with  the  titles  of  the  offices  to 
be  voted  for  with  a  blank  space  under  the  title  where  the 
voter  can  write  the  name  he  prefers.  Sometimes  the  can- 
didates print  their  names  under  the  proper  heading,  leaving 
the  other  blanks  unfilled.  The  Congressional  and  county 
tickets  are  on  the  same  plan.  The  State  tickets  go  in  one 
box  and  the  Congressional  and  county  tickets  in  another, 
and  sometimes  boxes  are  provided  for  the  lesser  offices. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  57 

Under  the  rules  of  the  Democratic  organization  it  requires 
a  majority  to  elect,  and  where  the  primary  discloses  a 
plurality  a  second  primary  is  held,  the  race  then  being 
between  the  two  highest  candidates  only.  The  candidates 
receiving  a  majority  of  the  votes  at  the  primary  are  the 
candidates  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  are  voted  for  at 
the  State  election.  While  this  method  prevents  the  "ma- 
chine" from  running  the  State,  and  allows  the  dweller  in 
the  remotest  community  to  register  his  preference,  it  makes 
a  long  and  acrimonious  campaign  for  the  higher  and  more 
dignified  offices,  and  the  successful  candidate  always  suffers 
from  the  spirit  of  disrespect  engendered  during  the  cam- 
paign. As  to  the  minor  offices  the  plan  is  not  so  objec- 
tionable, as  the  campaign  is  shorter  and  the  popular  feel- 
ings have  less  time  to  ferment.  The  objections  to  the  plan 
are:  That  in  time  it  will  lower  the  dignity  of  the  higher 
offices,  and  the  ablest  men  will  not  aspire  to  those  posi- 
tions which  will  turn  them  into  office-beggars  compelled 
to  go  whining  about  the  State,  suffering  from,  if  not  be- 
stowing, abuse.  In  order  to  preserve  white  supremacy,  the 
Democrats  bow  to  the  edict  of  the  primary,  however  blast- 
ing it  may  be  to  individual  hopes;  but  under  other  con- 
ditions the  primary  would  wreck  any  party  which  attempted 
to  employ  it  to  that  wide  extent  prevailing  here.  Then,  too, 
it  prevents  the  formulation  of  any  definite  party  policy,  as 
each  candidate  makes  his  own  platform  and  there  are  as 
many  platforms  as  there  are  candidates.  Observer. 

Greenville,  S.  C. 


Outlook.  60:251-2.    September  24,  1898. 
Direct  Primaries.     F.   M.   Brooks. 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Outlook: 

Your  issue  of  a  few  weeks  ago  contained  a  letter  giving 


58  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  dark  side  of  direct  primaries  as  at  present  held  in 
the  city  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.  The  letter  referred  to  closed 
by  saying  that  much  can  be  said  in  theory  but  little  in 
practice  of  the  nominations  of  candidates  for  public  office 
by  direct  vote.  The  implication  is  that  the  experience  in 
Cleveland  is  a  criterion  of  what  would  exist  wherever  nom- 
inations by  direct  vote  were  made;  but  before  accepting  that 
conclusion  let  those  interested  in  this  question  know  the 
facts. 

The  Cleveland  method  is  simply  the  old  regulation  and 
discredited  primary,  with  all  its  attending  evils,  with  the 
exception  that  the  ballots  contain  the  names  of  candidates 
for  the  nominations  instead  of  delegates  to  conventions,  and 
are  printed  and  furnished  by  the  Board  of  Elections,  which 
body  also  appoints  clerks  to  receive  the  ballots  and  count 
them. 

While  these  are  very  good  requirements,  they  are  but  in- 
cidentals compared  to  two  other  features  which  must  be 
secured  before  nominations  by  direct  vote  can  by  any  pos- 
sibility produce  good  results. 

First:  A  provision  must  be  adopted  which  will  secure  the 
support  and  participation  of  practically  all  the  voters.  Pri- 
maries and  caucuses  never  have  and  apparently  never  will 
do  this,  no  matter  what  ballot  is  or  is  not  used.  This  fact 
is  so  self-evident  that  any  attempt  to  perpetuate  caucuses 
or  primaries  means  a  waste  of  time.  Annual  registration 
da3^s  are  known  to  call  out  more  voters  than  the  election 
day.  Obviously,  no  better  time  could  be  secured  than  this 
for  the  purpose  of  nominating  candidates,  as  all  voters 
could  then  participate.  In  Cleveland,  candidates  are  not 
voted  for  on  registration  days,  but  at  such  time  as  the 
party  dictates,  with  the  natural  result  that  the  attendance  at 
the  caucuses  is  very  light,  those  attending  being  principally 
office-seekers,  office-holders,  and  their  friends.  In  New  York 
State  the  present  primary  law  provides  for  an  enrollment 
of  voters  to  their  respective  parties  which  prevents  an  ad- 
herent of  one  party  voting  the  ticket  of  another.  In  Cleve- 
land there  is  no  enrollment,  any  man  presenting  himself 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES 


59 


being  allowed  (contrary  to  law)  to  vote,  and  it  is  customary 
to  bring  Democrats  to  Republican  caucuses  to  decide  fac- 
tional fights. 

Second:  A  law  governing  direct  vote  primaries  should  be 
mandatory,  not  optional.  In  Cleveland  it  is  optional,  Repub- 
licans having  adopted  it,  the  Democrats  confining  them- 
selves to  the  old  convention  method.  Should  the  law  be 
mandatory,  all  parties  would  be  upon  the  same  plane,  with 
the  same  modus  operandi,  which  in  time  would  become  fa- 
miliar to  all  citizens.  F.  M.  Brooks. 

New   York. 


Outlook.  58:210.     January  22,  1898. 

Hill  Bill  for  Primary  Reform. 

In  the  New  York  Legislature  nearly  half  a  dozen  bills 
have  already  been  presented  aiming  at  a  reform  of  the  pri- 
maries. Of  these  bills  the  best  by  all  odds  is  that  intro- 
duced by  Assemblyman  Henry  W.  Hill,  of  Buffalo.  This 
measure  is  the  outcome  of  the  long  and  thorough  investiga- 
tion given  the  matter  by  a  special  committee  of  the  Buffalo 
Republican  League.  This  committee  examined  all  the  stat- 
utes now  in  force  in  any  part  of  the  country,  and  in  drafting 
its  bill  accepted  the  California  system  of  simultaneous  pri- 
maries, the  Massachusetts  system  of  printing  the  names 
of  all  candidates  upon  an  official  ballot,  and  the  Kentucky 
system  of  asking  each  voter,  when  registering,  to  state  with 
which  party  he  wishes  to  affiliate  and  authorizing  every 
voter  to  cast  a  vote  in  the  primaries  of  the  party  named. 
In  addition  to  these  suggestions  based  upon  experience  else- 
where, the  committee  recommends  and  Mr.  Hill's  bill  pro- 
poses the  combination  of  registration  days  with  primary 
election  days,  very  much  as  was  proposed  in  Mr.  Brooks's 
widely  discussed  article  in  The  Outlook  a  few  weeks  ago. 


60  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

All  the  voters  who  register  on  either  of  the  first  two  registra- 
tion days  may  immediately  in  the  registration  room  vote 
in  the  primaries  of  the  party  of  their  choice,  receiving  an 
official  ballot  having  upon  it  without  discrimination  the 
candidates  urged  by  the  politicians  and  those  presented  by 
independent  groups  of  citizens.  Mr.  Hill's  bill  permits  these 
primary  elections  to  be  merely  for  the  choice  of  delegates  to 
nominating  conventions,  and  this  permission  is  doubtless 
necessary  to  get  the  bill  through  the  Legislature,  for  poli- 
ticians as  a  rule  greatly  prefer  to  have  final  nominations  left 
to  conventions  instead  of  being  determined  by  the  whole 
body  of  voters.  The  Hill  bill  requires,  however,  that  where 
ten  per  cent,  of  the  voters  of  any  party  so  request,  the 
question  of  choosing  candidates  by  the  direct  vote  of  the 
citizens  must  be  submitted  to  them.  The  measure  is  an  ad- 
mirable one,  and  not  only  deserves  adoption  in  New  York 
State,  but  deserves  to  be  commended  to  the  Legislatures 
of  other  States.  We  trust  that  the  primary  reform  conven- 
tion held  in  this  city  this  week  will  give  its  cordial  support 
to  this  measure,  or  some  other  equally  democratic. 


Outlook.   58:261-2.     January  29,   1898. 
An   Essential   Reform. 

We  call  the  especial  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  report 
of  the  Primary  Election  Reform  Convention  which  is  given 
on  another  page.  The  reform  of  the  primary  is  the  fore- 
most question  to-day  in  American  politics.  The  people  elect 
officers  but  do  not  nominate  them,  and  consequently  the 
election  is  often  a  choice  between  candidates  neither  of 
whom  is  acceptable;  sometimes  it  is  a  choice  between  two 
candidates  nominated  in  separate  party  conventions  upon 
an  agreement  before  arrived  at  by  bosses  working  in  part- 
nership for  a  common  end.  How  to  transfer  the  power  of 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  6l 

nomination  from  the  few  to  the  many,  from  the  machine, 
which  can  be  and  often  is  purchased,  to  the  people,  who 
may  be  deceived  but  are  not  corrupt,  is  the  most  important 
present  problem  which  democracy  has  to  solve.  The  ques- 
tion what  a  present  Legislature  in  any  State  will  consent 
to  is  wholly  unimportant.  Indeed,  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  best  measure  for  promoting  radical  reform  would 
not  be  to  secure  a  repudiation  of  any  reform  from  a  Leg- 
islature elected  by  the  old  methods.  This  would  afford  a 
new  demonstration  of  the  vice  inherent  in  the  old  methods. 
The  appeal  of  reformers  must  be,  not  to  Legislatures,  but 
to  the  people.  They  must  not  petition  machine-made  leg- 
islative bodies  for  such  measure  of  reform  as  the  machine 
is  graciously  willing  to  grant;  they  must  demand  such  meas- 
ure of  reform  as  they  think  the  purity  of  elections  requires, 
and  then  elect  a  Legislature  which  will  give  it  to  them.  De- 
tails must  necessarily  be  left  to  be  worked  out  by  experts 
familiar  with  political  machinery,  but  there  are  certain  gen- 
eral principles  which  one  need  not  be  an  expert  to  under- 
stand. These  seem  to  us  to  be  three  in  number: 

1.  The   law   already    recognizes    party    organizations.      It 
gives  the  party  a  right  to  have  the  names  of  its  candidates 
printed  on  the  official  ballot.    It  generally  provides  that  each 
party  shall  be  represented  in  election  inspectors.     It  some- 
times  requires,   as    in    New   York   City,   that   both   the   two 
great    parties    shall    be    represented    on    the    Police    Board. 
The  party  organization,  which  thus  has  peculiar  privileges 
and  responsibilities  given  to  it  by  law,  must  be  brought  un- 
der the  control  of  law. 

2.  The  party  nominations  must  be  made  by  the  people; 
at  least  they  must  be  so  made  that  all  the  people  shall  have 
an   opportunity  to   share   in  them.     It  is   as   illegitimate  to 
allow  irresponsible  committeees  to  determine  who  may  par- 
ticipate  in   nominations   as   it   would   be   to   allow   them   to 
determine  who  may  participate  in   elections.     The   primary 
must  be  under  law  and  open  to  all  the  people.     This  is  the 
essential  feature  in  the  Kentucky  plan,  as  described  in  the 
report  of  the  Primary  Reform  Convention  on  another  page. 


62  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Nothing  less  than  a  similar  direct  primary  will  secure  pop- 
ular rights  against  oligarchic  usurpation. 

3.  This  direct  primary  must  be  made  as  simple  and  as 
easy  of  attendance  as  possible.  Giving  the  people  a  right 
to  vote  for  nominees  is  not  enough;  it  must  be  made  easy 
for  them  to  vote  for  nominees.  The  best  men  in  every  com- 
munity are  busy  men.  Their  business  is  often,  if  not  gen- 
erally as  truly  public  business  as  is  attending  primaries.  The 
doctor  has  his  patients,  the  lawyer  his  clients,  the  teacher 
his  pupils,  the  merchant  his  customers,  the  artisan  his 
shop;  and  these  duties  cannot  be  neglected,  ought  not  to  be 
neglected.  The  methods  which  have  made  elections  easy  can 
be  so  applied  as  to  make  nominations  easy  for  the  busy  man. 
Wherever  registration  is  required,  a  vote  for  candidates 
might  easily  be  made  to  accompany  it.  Thus  the  registra- 
tion would  itself  become  a  primary.  And  though  nomina- 
tions might,  and  probably  would,  precede  the  primary  so 
conducted,  it  would  be  a  simple  matter  for  independent  Re- 
publicans and  independent  Democrats  to  nominate  also,  and 
the  rank  and  file  would  no  longer  be  required  by  a  mistaken 
notion  of  party  loyalty  to  vote  for  objectionable  candidates 
and  objectionable  policies. 

Reformers  may  well  compromise  as  to  methods;  they 
may  well  be  willing  to  see  different  experiments  tried  in 
different  localities;  they  may  and  should  be  patient  in  work- 
ing out  a  completed  system.  But  they  will  make  a  mistake 
if  they  consent  to  any  system  which  does  not  involve  these 
three  principles:  simplicity  of  method;  direct  participation 
by  the  people;  and  regulation  by  law. 


Outlook.   64:378.     February    17,   1900. 
Direct  Primaries  and  Ward  Option  in  Ohio. 
Two  bills  of  decided  moral  importance  have  been  intro- 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  63 

duced  at  the  present  session  of  the  Ohio  Legislature,  and 
have  a  fair  prospect  of  being  enacted  into  law.  One  of 
these  contemplates  a  radical  reform  in  the  State's  primary 
election  laws,  whose  imperfect  character  has  claimed  for 
the  past  two  years  the  careful  attention  of  Secretary  of 
State  Kinney,  the  real  father  of  the  bill;  the  second  proposes 
local  option  for  wards  and  municipalities,  and  was  prac- 
tically framed  by  the  State  Anti-Saloon  League.  The  most 
important  features  of  the  primary  election  law  are  that  it 
robs  political  bosses  of  the  power  to  pack  county,  district, 
and  State  conventions  with  their  friends,  and  gives  the 
people  a  direct  voice  in  the  selection  of  party  candidates. 
To  accomplish  these  ends  it  requires  voters  to  register  be- 
fore they  can  vote  at  a  primary,  just  as  they  are  now  re- 
quired to  register  before  voting  at  a  general  election;  and 
also  requires  them  to  state  their  politics  at  the  time  of  reg- 
istering. Those  entitled  to  take  part  in  the  primaries  vote 
directly  upon  the  candidates  proposed. 


Outlook.  63:475.     October  28,  1899. 

Direct   Primaries   in   Kansas   and   Missouri. 

Political  ideas  of  value  are  rarely  if  ever  the  suggestions 
of  a  single  person  or  even  a  single  community.  Since  the 
systematic  agitation  for  direct  primaries  to  prevent  the  evils 
of  machine  rule  has  been  started,  more  and  more  rural 
communities  keep  cropping  up  which  have  had  direct  pri- 
maries for  years  and  even  decades.  A  recent  issue  of  the 
"Arena"  calls  attention  to  a  county  in  Kansas,  Jackson 
County,  where  the  Republicans  have  done  all  their  nom- 
inating without  the  use  of  delegate  conventions  since  1877. 
The  names  of  all  the  candidates  for  each  office  are  submitted 
at  the  primary,  and  the  voters  of  the  party  turn  out  to  ex- 
press their  choice  quite  as  generally  as  they  turn  out  to  vote 


64  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  party  ticket  on  election  day.  In  Missouri  also  the 
system  seems  to  have  been  long  established  in  many  of 
the  rural  counties,  and  now  its  adoption  by  the  Democratic 
party  for  the  nomination  of  State  candidates  is  being  vig- 
orously agitated.  State  Senator  Hall,  one  of  the  two  lead- 
ing candidates  for  Governor,  is  demanding  that  the  choice 
be  referred  to  a  direct  primary,  and  Congressman  Clark 
warmly  seconds  him.  Governor  Stevens,  however,  who  rep- 
resents the  dominant  machine,  opposes  the  system.  He  has 
published  a  long  statement  of  the  reasons  for  his  opposi- 
tion, alleging  that  a  State  primary  would  make  it  difficult 
for  poor  men  to  run  for  State  offices,  and  also  that  in  many 
instances  Republican  voters  would  be  allowed  to  vote  at 
the  Democratic  primaries.  The  latter  objection  is  easily 
met  by  the  fact  that  a  good  primary  law  prevents  voters 
from  taking  part  in  the  primaries  of  more  than  one  party, 
and  the  former  objection  by  the  fact  that  delegate  conven- 
tions are  everywhere  the  main  reliance  of  candidates  rep- 
resenting moneyed  interests.  These  conventions  composed 
of  active  politicians  are  easily  influenced  by  the  lavish  use 
of  money,  while  the  candidate  who  wishes  to  run  well  at 
a  general  primary  has  more  to  lose  than  to  win  by  the  use 
of  this  agency.  The  demand  for  a  State  primary  in  Mis- 
souri is  rapidly  gaining,  the  movement  being  already  on 
foot  in  nearly  all  of  the  hundred  and  fourteen  counties.  The 
speedy  triumph  of  the  movement  in  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  promises  a  similar  triumph  in  Missouri. 


Outlook.   65:761.   August  4,   1900. 
Direct   Primaries   Make   Headway. 

Though  unnoticed  in  National  platforms  and  opposed  by 
party  machines,  the  cause  of  direct  primaries  continues  to 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  65 

make  headway.  Its  most  important  recent  triumph  is  the 
now  assured  nomination  of  ex-Congressman  La  Follette  as 
the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor  of  Wisconsin.  Two 
years  ago,  it  may  be  recalled,  Mr.  La  Follette's  canvass 
for  the  nomination  upon  an  anti-machine,  anti-monopoly 
platform  developed  such  strength  all  over  the  State  that  his 
opponents  were  compelled  to  accept  his  programme  as  the 
platform  of  the  party.  Then  Governor  Scofield  seemed  to 
the  State  Convention  entitled  to  a  second  term,  but  this  year 
Mr.  La  Follette's  right  to  the  nomination  seems  to  be  ac- 
corded on  all  hands.  The  essential  part  of  his  programme, 
both  to  get  rid  of  machine  rule  and  monopoly  rule,  is  the 
direct  nomination  of  candidates  by  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
voters.  The  rule  of  the  machine  means  the  rule  of  the 
special  interests  which  keep  in  their  pay  the  manipulators  of 
the  machine.  The  general  public  always  desires  to  secure 
the  general  interests,  and  the  men  who  secure  nominations 
from  the  general  body  of  the  voters  must  at  least  pledge 
themselves  to  put  an  end  to  special  privileges.  Mr.  La 
Follette  has  pointed  out  to  the  voters  of  Wisconsin  that  our 
representative  Government  tends  to  become  less  repre- 
sentative as  cities  and  States  advance  in  population.  In  the 
larger  communities  the  representative  is  no  longer  a  man 
who  is  personally  acquainted  with  the  mass  of  his  con- 
stituents, and  unless  we  change  the  methods  of  nominatiop 
*o  as  to  bring  him  directly  in  touch  with  them,  government 
by  the  people  degenerates  into  government  by  caucuses  and 
conventions,  only  remotely  under  popular  control.  Mr.  La 
Follette  would  have  the  names  of  all  candidates  for  party 
nominations  printed  on  an  official  ballot  and  presented  to 
all  the  voters  of  the  party — the  candidate  receiving  the  high- 
est number  of  votes  being  made  the  nominee.  This  is  sub- 
stantially the  plan  which  has  worked  so  well  in  nominating 
State  officers  in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  and  in  nominat- 
ing local  officers  in  many  parts  of  the  West  and  South.  Only 
a  few  weeks  ago  we  learned  that  it  had  been  adopted  in 
Scranton,  Pa.,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  corruption  of 
delegates  at  nominating  conventions,  and  that  at  the  first 


66  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

election  under  the  new  system  a  prominent  citizen  who  had 
shown  his  sincerity  in  the  work  of  securing  honest  juries  so 
as  to  close  the  saloons  on  Sunday  was  nominated  for  Com- 
missioner of  Jurors  by  a  vote  several  times  as  great  as 
that  of  all  his  opponents.  Before  a  delegate  convention 
such  a  candidate  would  rarely  have  received  serious  consid- 
eration. 


Outlook.   65:897-8.     August    18,   1900. 
Direct    Primaries    in    Wisconsin. 

The  Republican  Convention  in  Wisconsin  has  not  only 
nominated  ex-Congressman  La  Follette  for  Governor,  as 
was  anticipated  in  our  paragraph  two  weeks  ago,  but  has 
adopted  a  platform  championing  the  principle  of  direct  pri- 
maries in  a  more  uncompromising  way  than  we  dared  hope. 
It  reads  as  follows: 

"The  great  reformation  effected  in  our  general  elections 
through  the  Australian  ballot  inspired  us  with  confidence 
to  apply  the  same  method  in  making  nomination,  so  that 
every  voter  may  exercise  his  sovereign  right  of  choice 
by  direct  vote  without  the  intervention  or  interference  of 
any  political  agency.  We  therefore  demand  that  caucuses 
and  conventions  for  the  nominations  of  candidates  for 
offices  be  abolished  by  legislative  enactment,  and  that  all 
candidates  for  State,  Legislative,  Congressional,  and  county 
offices  be  nominated  at  primary  election,  upon  the  same  day, 
by  direct  vote,  under  the  Australian  ballot." 

Evidently  the  agitation  which  Mr.  La  Follette  began  four 
years  ago  has  been  crowned  with  complete  success.  Gov- 
ernment by  the  machine,  without  the  consent  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  voters,  will  be  made  impossible  if  his  platform 
is  transformed  into  law.  The  machine  remains,  but  its 
position  is  that  of  servant  instead  of  master.  In  South 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  67 

Carolina  and  Georgia,  as  we  have  before  had  occasion  to 
state,  the  system  of  direct  nominations  adopted  by  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  has  made  the  influence  of  the  machine  so  small 
that  a  candidate  is  almost  as  likely  to  be  injured  as  to  be 
helped  if  the  machine  is  believed  to  support  his  claim.  The 
chief  tactical  objection  urged  against  direct  primaries  is  the 
danger  that  a  contest  within  the  party  prior  to  the  nom- 
ination makes  it  more  difficult  to  restore  complete  party 
union  after  the  nominations  are  made.  From  the  stand- 
point of  the  partisan  this  objection  has  weight  when  a  single 
party  is  asked  to  adopt  the  system,  but  it  disappears  when 
the  law  requires  the  opposing  party  to  adopt  it  also.  To 
people  who  are  not  partisans,  the  fact  that  direct  primaries 
require  all  the  voters  to  discuss  the  merits  of  their  party  can- 
didates before  they  are  blinded  by  the  fact  that  these  can- 
didates have  the  party  indorsement  is  a  reason  for  favoring 
direct  nominations.  Democracy  becomes  a  reality  only 
where  the  great  mass  of  citizens  consider  independently 
what  men  and  what  measures  shall  receive  their  support. 
The  fact  that  direct  nominations  and  direct  legislation  com- 
pel citizens  to  consider  both  candidates  and  measures  with- 
out party  bias  is  the  fact  which  most  commends  them  to 
those  who  care  for  the  elevation  of  our  political  life. 


Outlook.  66:91-2.     September  8,   1900. 
Primaries,  Direct  and  Indirect. 

The  important  political  news  last  week  was  all  connected 
in  some  way  with  the  issue  of  direct  primaries.  The  most 
important  event  was  the  holding  of  the  indirect  primaries 
throughout  New  York  State  to  determine  who  should  be 
the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor.  These  primaries, 
under  the  new  law,  were,  with  few  exceptions,  fairly  con- 
ducted, but  the  fact  that  the  voters  could  not  directly  ex- 


68  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

press  their  choice  for  Governor,  and  could  only  select  del- 
egates to  a  State  Convention,  kept  four-fifths  of  them  at 
home.  As  a  rule,  in  this  city,  only  the  regular  workers  and 
their  immediate  friends  came  to  the  primaries,  and  as  a 
result  the  regular  machine,  whose  nominees,  were  not 
pledged  to  any  particaular  candidate,  had  little  difficulty  in 
carrying  all  the  wards.  In  a  few,  however,  opposition  can- 
didates, directly  pledged  to  support  Mr.  Coler,  obtained 
nearly  half  the  votes.  Outside  of  this  city  delegates  who 
support  Mr.  Hill  in  his  indorsement  of  Mr.  Coler  were 
nearly  everywhere  elected,  and  it  is  still  possible  that  the 
Brooklyn  machine  will  join  forces  with  the  "up-the-State" 
delegates  and  put  in  nomination  the  man  who  would  bring 
to  the  party  incomparably  the  largest  independent  vote. 
Nevertheless,  the  probabilities  are  that  the  machines  will 
sacrifice  not  only  the  public  interests,  but  the  party's  in- 
terests, in  order  to  subserve  the  private  interests  of  their 
own  leaders.  With  direct  primaries  the  vote  would  unques- 
tionably have  given  Comptroller  Coler  an  overwhelming 
majority  over  all  other  competitors.  No  one  can  question 
this  who  believes  that  direct  primaries  would  bring  out  a 
general  vote;  and  no  one  can  question  that  they  would 
bring  out  a  general  vote  who  noticed  the  result  of  the 
direct  primaries  held  last  week  by  the  white  voters  of  South 
Carolina.  There  are  only  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
such  voters  in  South  Carolina,  and  at  the  last  regular  elec- 
tion less  than  thirty  thousand  of  them  went  to  the  polls. 
At  the  primaries  last  week,  however,  the  total  vote  exceeded 
ninety  thousand.  In  other  words,  the  vote  at  the  direct  pri- 
maries was  as  general  as  was  the  vote  in  Massachusetts,  for 
example  at  the  last  State  election.  The  principal  issue  in 
South  Carolina  was  the  dispensary — Governor  McSweeny 
and  two  other  candidates  championing  the  continuance  of 
that  institution,  and  Colonel  Hoyt  advocating  the  substi- 
tution of  complete  prohibition.  At  the  direct  primaries 
Colonel  Hoyt  polled  approximately  34,000  votes,  Governor 
McSweeny  38,000,  and  the  two  remaining  dispensary  can- 
didates about  nineteen  thousand  votes  together.  As  no  can- 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  69 

didate  received  a  majority  of  the  total  vote,  there  must  be 
a  second  election,  at  which  every  one  must  vote  for  either 
Governor  McSweeny  or  Colonel  Hoyt.  But  the  emphatic 
majority  given  to  the  dispensary  candidates  almost  insures 
Governor  McSweeny's  renomination.  Whatever  the  out- 
come of  the  second  election,  however,  no  one  can  question 
that  direct  primaries  do  bring  the  voters  to  the  polls. 


Outlook.  66:861-2.     December  8,  1900. 

Direct  .Primaries   in   Pennsylvania. 

The  paragraphs  we  have  been  publishing  in  reference  to 
the  success — qualified  or  unqualified — of  direct  primaries  as 
a  substitute  for  delegate  conventions  have  brought  to  us 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Arthur  Dunn,  of  Scranton,  Pa.,  showing 
how  the  new  system  has  checked  the  evils  of  bossism  and 
bribery  in  his  home  county.  His  account  runs  as  follows: 
"The  direct  method  of  voting  at  primaries  was  first  adopted 
by  the  Republican  party  in  this  county  in  1897.  It  is  called 
the  Crawford  County  system,  deriving  its  name  from  the 
county  first  to  adopt  it.  Any  member  of  the  Republican 
party,  by  registering  his  name  with  the  Republican  County 
Committee,  can  become  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  for 
any  office  he  may  elect.  All  the  members  of  the  party,  on 
a  day  stated,  vote,  as  in  elections,  directly  for  the  man  of 
their  choice.  There  are  often  as  many  as  five  or  seven 
candidates  for  the  same  nomination.  The  ones  receiving 
the  highest  number  of  votes  for  the  different  offices  are 
declared  to  be  the  nominees  of  the  party.  Under  the  delegate 
system  an  aspirant  for  political  office  secured  the  consent  of 
the  boss.  Under  the  present  system  this  would  injure  the 
candidate's  chances  of  success.  Under  the  delegate  system 
the  consent  of  the  boss  was  given  in  return  for  contribu- 
tions assessed  according  to  the  emoluments  of  the  respective 


70  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

offices.  The  money  thus  pooled  was  used  in  buying  the  votes 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  the  delegates  to  control  the  con- 
vention. These  delegates  were  chosen  by  about  one-fifth  the 
entire  vote  of  the  party.  How  vicious,  corrupt,  and  oli- 
garchial this  system  had  become  is  illustrated  by  an  editorial 
in  the  Scranton  'Truth'  of  September  -8,  1897,  immediately 
after  the  last  of  the  conventions,  reporting  that  the  price 
of  a  delegate  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  two  hundred 
dollars,  and  that  something  like  twenty  thousand  dollars  had 
been  spent  "in  controlling  the  convention."  Over  against 
this  account  of  the  last  convention  under  the  old  system — 
known  as  the  "Klondike  Convention" — Mr.  Dunn  sets  the 
following  paragraph  from  the  same  paper,  dated  January  16, 
1899: 

"Nearly  7>°°°  votes  were  cast  between  four  and  eight 
o'clock  Saturday  evening  at  the  Republican  primary  elec- 
tion. It  was  the  first  test  of  the  Crawford  County  rules, 
and  the  results  showed  that  a  vast  number  of  voters  took 
an  interest  in  the  election.  Captain  James  Moir  was  nom- 
inated by  over  1,400  majority.  He  received  almost  as  many 
votes  as  all  the  other  candidates  together." 

"The  vote  as  mentioned  above,"  says  Mr.  Dunn,  "repre- 
sents the  entire  Republican  vote  of  the  city.  On  credible 
authority,  the  nomination  cost  Mr.  Moir  $98.50.  He  is  our 
present  Mayor,  and  the  greatest  compliment  that  can  be 
paid  him  is  that  he  is  the  kind  of  a  man  who  could  never 
have  been  nominated  under  the  old  system.  Last  spring  E. 
B.  Sturges,  a  man  of  wealth  and  highest  character,  leader 
of  the  reform  movement  against  unlicensed  saloons,  bawdy- 
houses,  gambling-dens,  corrupt  officials,  and  all  forms  of 
vice,  registered  as  a  candidate  for  Jury  Commissioner,  an 
office  insignificant  and  which  pays  about  as  much  per  year 
as  that  gentleman  gives  to  charity  every  week.  In  this 
county,  with  its  large  foreign  element,  it  3,000  unlicensed 
saloons,  its  bribers  and  its  bribed,  this  man  received  9,000 
of  the  16,000  Republican  votes  cast."  Mr.  Dunn  concludes 
his  report  as  follows:  "The  ring  made  an  attempt  to  repeal 
the  new  system,  and  failed  by  only  two  of  the  necessary 


DIRECT   PRIMARIES  ;i 

two-thirds  majority,  but  the  attempt  aroused  a  storm  of  in- 
dignation. The  results  obtained  from  the  new  system  give 
a  hopeful  outlook  for  the  future,  and  show  beyond  doubt 
that,  given  a  chance,  'the  people  are  right/  " 


Outlook.  67:477-8.     March  2,  1901. 
Direct  Primaries  Demanded. 

The  reform  of  primary  elections  is  before  the  Legislatures 
in  a  dozen  different  States,  and  in  the  Central  West  has  been 
the  foremost  subject  of  discussion.  The  recent  trial  of 
direct  primaries  at  Minneapolis,  Minn.,  has  forced  every  one 
to  recognize  that  disinterested  citizens  will  attend  primaries 
almost  en  masse  if  they  are  allowed  to  vote  directly  for  can- 
didates instead  of  merely  for  delegates  to  nominating  con- 
ventions; and  in  all  the  Northwestern  States  there  is  a 
strong  popular  demand  that  nominating  conventions  shall 
be  abolished,  just  as  they  have  already  been  in  South  Car- 
olina and  Georgia.  In  both  Michigan  and  Indiana  bills  abol- 
ishing conventions  in  the  counties  containing  the  largest 
cities  of  each  commonwealth  have  been  passed  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  though  in  Michigan  at  least  the 
Senate  has  rejected  the  reform  by  a  small  majority. 

The  conflict  centers  in  Wisconsin,  where  ex-Congressman 
La  Follette — for  years  leader  of  the  anti-monopoly  wing 
of  the  Republican  party — is  now  Governor,  and  is  using  all 
of  his  great  influence  to  secure  the  adoption  of  a  direct 
primary  law  covering  the  entire  State.  Governor  La  Fol- 
lette, it  will  be  recalled,  won  his  fight  completely  in  the 
nominating  convention,  and  obtained  for  direct  primaries 
an  indorsement  which  seemed  to  pledge  every  legislator 
professing  party  loyalty  to  support  a  comprehensive  direct 
primary  law.  But  pledges  of  this  sort,  which  are  opposed 
by  powerful  interests,  are  more  readily  made  during  cam- 


72  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

paigns  than  redeemed  after  their  close,  and  Wisconsin  is 
now  witnessing  the  spectacle  of  legislators  who  profess  to 
favor  nominations  by  the  people  in  the  abstract,  but  oppose 
the  concrete  bills  to  carry  this  principle  into  effect.  As 
usual,  the  opposition  to  the  reform  professes  the  same  ends 
as  the  reformers.  The  opponents  of  the  bills  are  "as  much 
opposed  to  machine  rule  as  the  reformers,"  but  they  object 
to  the  proposed  primary  election  law  because  the  difficulty 
of  going  to  the  polls  in  the  rural  districts  will  "lessen  the 
political  influence  of  the  farmers,"  because  the  expense  of 
making  a  canvass  among  the  general  body  of  voters  will 
embarrass  the  "poorer  candidates,"  and  because  the  election 
will  be  generally  burdensome  to  the  whole  body  of  voters. 
In  reply  to  the  first  of  these  objections  it  only  needs  to  be 
remarked  that  the  movement  for  direct  primaries  has  re- 
ceived its  chief  support  from  the  farming  districts  of  dis- 
tinctively farming  States,  because  the  caucus  system  always 
put  political  control  in  the  hands  of  a  knot  of  politicians  in 
the  cities  or  country  towns.  In  reply  to  the  second  objec- 
tion it  only  needs  to  be  recalled  that  the  direct  primary 
movement  has  received  all  its  support  from  the  opponents 
of  the  political  control  of  moneyed  interests. 

One  of  the  chief  objections  to  the  caucus  system  is  that 
it  prevents  the  candidacy  of  men  unable  or  unwilling  to  buy 
their  nomination  or  become  the  tools  of  powerful  interests 
which  will  buy  it  for  them.  The  third  objection  to  the  direct 
primary — that  it  imposes  a  burden  upon  the  whole  body  of 
voters — is  valid  enough,  but  the  same  objection  holds 
against  all  democratic  institutions.  The  distinctive  thing 
about  democracy  is  that  it  imposes  political  duties  upon  the 
whole  people,  instead  of  leaving  one  man  or  a  few  men  to 
look  after  public  affairs.  The  fact  that  direct  primaries 
do  impose  upon  all  the  duty  of  taking  part  in  the  nomina- 
tion of  public  officers  is  one  of  the  chief  arguments  in  its 
favor.  This  duty  creates  a  better  citizenship,  and  a  better 
citizenship  is  even  more  important  than  the  better  govern- 
ment which  it  finally  secures. 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  73 

Outlook.  67:654-5.  March  23,  1901. 
Direct  Primaries. 

The  Minnesota  Legislature,  with  but  fourteen  dissenting 
votes,  has  extended  to  the  whole  State  the  direct  primary 
system,  tested  in  Minneapolis  last  fall.  The  only  important 
change  made  is  that  the  voter  is  required  to  state  with  what 
party  he  generally  affiliates  before  taking  part  in  the  pri- 
mary. This  advance  in  Minnesota,  however,  is  almost  coun- 
terbalanced by  the  unexpectedly  slow  progress  reported  from 
Wisconsin.  There  is  danger  that  the  Wisconsin  Legislature 
will  refuse  to  enact  the*tlirect  primary  law  which  nearly  ev- 
ery member  thereof  was  pledged  to  support  by  the  plat- 
form upon  which  he  was  elected.  The  primary  plank  in  the 
Republican  platform — and  the  Legislature  is  almost  solidly 
Republican — read  as  follows: 

"The  great  reformation  effected  in  our  general  elections 
through  the  Australian  ballot  inspires  us  with  confidence  to 
apply  the  same  method  in  making  nominations,  so  that  every 
voter  may  exercise  his  sovereign  right  of  choice  by  direct 
vote  without  the  intervention  or  interference  of  any  political 
agency.  We  therefore  demand  that  caucuses  and  conven- 
tions for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  office  be  abolished 
by  legislative  enactment,  and  that  all  candidates  for  State, 
Legislative,  Congressional,  and  county  officers  be  nominated 
at  primary  elections  upon  the  same  day  by  direct  vote  under 
the  Australian  ballot." 

The  bill  presented  to  the  Legislature,  with  the  support  of 
Governor  La  Follette,  seemed  to  us  an  excellent  measure 
for  carrying  out  this  pledge.  There  were  in  it  details  that 
appeared  needlessly  cumbersome,  and  there  were  radical 
proposals  affecting  the  organization  of  the  State  Committee 
and  the  formulation  of  State  platforms  which  were  not  nec- 
essarily involved  in  a  direct  primary  system;  but  all  of  these 
features  could  be  submitted  to  a  party  caucus,  each  of  whose 
members  would  be  bound  by  the  party  pledge  to  abide  by 
the  decision  of  the  majority.  The  proposals  relating  to  the 


74  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

organization  of  State  Committees  and  the  formulation  of 
State  platforms  seemed  to  us  admirable.  The  State  Com- 
mittee was  to  be  made  up  of  the  chairmen  of  the  county 
committees,  who  were  to  be  directly  elected  by  the  voters 
and  the  State  platform  was  to  be  framed  by  the  candidates 
chosen  by  the  voters  for  the  various  executive  and  legislative 
offices.  The  former  feature  made  the  party  machine  directly 
the  servant  of  the  whole  party,  and  the  latter  gave  over  the 
drafting  of  the  platform  to  the  men  who  could  be  held  most 
directly  accountable  for  its  provisions.  However,  these  de- 
tails were  not  essential  to  the  fulfillment  of  the  party's 
pledge,  and  no  legislator  can  be  condemned  for  refusing  to 
support  them.  But  the  legislators  must  be  condemned  who 
refuse  to  take  the  Governor's  bill  as  a  basis  for  caucus  ac- 
tion and  formulate  a  measure  acceptable  to  a  majority  of 
their  number,  by  which  their  promise  to  the  people  may  be 
kept. 


Outlook.  67:838-9.    April  13,  1901. 
Direct  Primary  in  Minnesota. 

A  notable  victory  for  the  direct  primary  system  has  just 
been  gained  in  Minnesota.  Two  years  ago  the  Legislature 
of  that  State  passed  a  bill  permitting  the  county  of  Hennepin, 
which  comprises  little  more  than  the  city  of  Minneapolis, 
to  use  a  system  of  direct  primary  voting  for  the  nomina- 
tion of  all  candidates  for  offices  voted  for  within  the  country. 
The  success  of  the  trial  of  this  plan  was  phenomenal,  sur- 
passing the  expectations  of  the  advocates  of  the  reform. 
When  it  was  seen  that  a  larger  percentage  of  the  voters 
participated  in  the  primaries  in  Hennepin  County  than  was 
usually  counted  at  the  polls,  a  demand  at  once  went  up  from 
the  rest  of  the  State  for  an  extension  of  the  law.  This  de- 
mand was  most  insistent  in  St.  Paul  and  Duluth,  the  two 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES 


75 


remaining  large  cities  of  the  State,  but  the  legislators  from 
the  country  districts  soon  became  aware  that  their  constitu- 
ents also  were  anxious  to  be  relieved  from  the  control  of 
the  boss  and  slate-maker  by  securing  for  themselves  the 
benefits  of  the  Hennepin  primary  law;  so  that  the  scheme 
of  some  of  the  Minneapolis  politicians  to  have  the  law  re- 
pealed met  with  so  little  encouragement  when  the  Legisla- 
ture met  this  winter  that  it  never  saw  the  light.  Several 
primary  bills  were  at  once  introduced  by  members  of  both 
parties,  and  a  measure  extending  the  system  to  the  whole 
State  passed  the  House  of  Representatives  with  little  oppo- 
sition. In  the  Senate  the  bill  did  not  have  such  plain  sailing, 
for  a  determined  fight  was  made  against  it  by  a  few  mem- 
bers friendly  to  the  machine.  Attempts  were  made  to  amend 
the  bill  to  death;  but  while  the  debate  was  going  on,  several 
of  the  lukewarm  Senators  heard  from  home  in  so  emphatic 
a  manner  that  when  the  final  vote  was  taken  in  the  Senate 
only  twelve  Senators  out  of  sixty-three  went  on  record  as 
opposed  to  the  bill.  The  law  covers  nominations  for  Con- 
gressional, legislative,  county,  and  city  offices,  and  district 
judgeships;  it  does  not  apply  to  State  offices  nor  to  lo- 
cal offices  of  villages  and  towns.  The  exception  of  State  of- 
fices was  conceded  as  a  compromise  to  carry  the  measure 
through  in  the  House.  In  towns  and  villages  where  all  the 
voters  know  each  other,  the  evils  of  the  machine  nomina- 
tions have  not  had  a  chance  to  develop.  The  main  provisions 
of  the  new  law  are  summarized  as  follows: 

"Any  person  who  wishes  to  become  a  candidate  for  the 
nomination  to  any  office  may  do  so  by  filing  an  affidavit  with 
the  county  auditor  and  paying  a  fee  of  ten  dollars,  or,  if  the 
office  is  to  be  voted  for  in  more  than  one  county,  by  filing 
his  affidavit  with  the  Secretary  of  State  and  paying  a  fee  of 
twenty  dollars.  No  person  defeated  at  the  primary  election 
can  go  on  the  official  ballot  at  the  final  election.  The  pri- 
mary election  will  be  held  on  the  seventh  Tuesday  before  elec- 
tion, which  is  also  to  be  the  first  day  of  registration,  and  any 
person  entitled  to  register  may  vote.  Australian  ballots  are 
to  be  provided  for  each  party  participating  in  the  election, 


;6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

and  each  voter  must  declare  his  party  affiliation  before  re- 
ceiving a  ballot.  If  challenged,  the  voter  must  make  affida- 
vit relative  to  his  party  preferences." 

This  most  important  reform  has  been  brought  about,  not  by 
strenuous  agitation,  but  rather  by  the  logic  of  events  and  by 
the  powerful  influence  of  a  highly  successful  experiment 
which  refuted  every  objection  that  could  be  urged  against  it. 


Outlook.  68: 140-1.  May  18,  1901. 
Direct  Primaries. 

The  reform  measures  especially  urged  at  this  Convention 
were  direct  primaries  and  uniform  municipal  accounting. 
The  first  subject  was  introduced  by  a  review  of  the  primary 
system  from  its  introduction  by  Samuel  Adams,  as  the  means 
by  which  men  of  the  middle  and  poorer  classes  in  sympathy 
with  popular  government  should  secure  the  election  of  men 
favorable  to  their  principles.  In  small  rural  districts  the 
primary  early  developed  into  a  "party  town  meeting,"  and 
its  nominees  were  almost  uniformly  acceptable  to  the  whole 
party.  In  the  larger  districts,  however,  the  impossibility 
of  assembling  all  the  voters  led  to  the  introduction  of  the 
delegate  convention  system.  This  for  a  time  worked  well, 
but  with  the  growth  of  these  communities  the  delegates 
came  to  be  less  and  less  closely  in  touch  with  the  whole  body 
of  voters,  and  finally  the  conventions  passed  under  the  con- 
trol of  little  knots  of  politicians  known  in  rural  committees 
as  the  "court-house  ring"  and  in  the  cities  as  "the  machine." 
The  movement  to  restore  popular  control  of  party  nomina- 
tions first  developed  strength  in  the  rural  districts,  where 
the  farmers  demanded  the  right  to  vote  directly  for  candid- 
ates instead  of  voting  for  delegates  to  choose  candidates. 
The  direct  vote  system  took  root  and  grew  almost  without 
cultivation  wherever  the  soil  was  democratic,  until  it  had 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES 


77 


taken  possession  of  vast  numbers  of  counties  and  Congres- 
sional districts  in  the  West  and  South.  Its  success  in  these 
rural  districts  and  the  growing  opposition  to  machine  mis- 
rule in  city  and  State  government  have  been  the  cause  of 
its  recent  triumphs  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Minne- 
sota, and  the  strong  popular  demand  for  its  establishment  in 
other  commonwealths.  One  of  the  speakers  on  the  subject 
was  Mr.  E.  A.  Hempstead,  the  editor  of  the  "Crawford 
Journal,"  of  Meadville,  Pennsylvania,  who  gave  the  history 
of  the  system  in  his  county,  where  it  was  introduced  by  the 
Republicans  in  1860,  and  from  which  it  has  extended,  over  a 
wide  territory  under  the  name  of  the  "Crawford  County 
system."  In  the  forty  years  of  trial,  the  average  vote  in  Re- 
publican primaries  of  Crawford  County  has  been  seventy- 
four  per  cent,  of  the  average  vote  at  the  general  election  fol- 
lowing, and  the  two  attempts  made  by  political  leaders  dur- 
ing the  seventies  to  reintroduce  convention  system  were 
voted  down — the  first  time  by  a  majority  of  more  than  three 
to  one,  and  the  next  time  by  a  majority  of  eighteen  to  one. 
In  the  discussion  the  Minnesota  plan  of  presenting  the  names 
of  all  candidates  on  an  official  ballot  and  holding  the  primary 
on  a  registration  day  was  warmly  commended. 


Outlook.  68:396-9.  June  15,  1901. 

The  Rights  of  Man:  a  Study  in  Twentieth  Century  Problems. 
Lyman  Abbott. 

What  are  the  relations  of  what  we  call  the  political  ma- 
chine to  a  democratic  government? 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  we  elect,  that  is,  choose, 
our  officers;  but  that  is  a  mistake.  Originally  the  fathers 
proposed  that  we  should  elect  a  certain  number  of  Presiden- 
tial electors;  these  electors  would  gather  together  at  Wash- 
ington or  in  their  several  States,  and  would  determine  who 


,78  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

should  be  our  President.  We  think  we  have  abolished  the 
electoral  college.  No,  we  have  substituted  another  electoral 
college.  No  one  supposes  that  the  Convention  that  met  at 
Philadelphia  nominated  Mr.  McKinley.  We  all  knew  that 
Mr.  McKinley  was  selected  before  the  Convention  met.  No 
one  supposes  that  the  Convention  which  gathered  at  Kan- 
sas City  selected  Mr.  Bryan;  we  all  knew  that  Mr.  Bryan 
had  been  selected  before  the  Convention  met.  A  small  body 
of  gentlemen,  more  or  less  intelligent,  patriotic,  disinterest- 
ed— if  you  please,  the  ablest,  the  most  patriotic,  the  most  dis- 
interested men  in  the  country,  for  their  personal  or  political 
character  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  method  of  nomination — 
met  together  and  decided  that  Mr.  McKinley  was  the  man 
the  Republican  party  should  nominate  for  President.  And 
another  small  body  of  men  similarly  selected  Mr.  Bryan  for 
the  Democratic  candidate.  The  one  body  of  men  organized 
primaries,  out  of  which  grew  the  one  Convention  which  came 
together  ready  to  shout  itself  hoarse  when  Mr.  McKinley 
was  proposed;  the  other  body  of  men  organized  primaries, 
out  of  which  grew  another  great  Convention  which  came 
together  ready  to  shout  itself  hoarse  when  Mr.  Bryan  was 
proposed.  And  then  the  people  went  to  the  polls;  if  a  voter 
did  not  like  Mr.  McKinley,  he  could  vote  for  Mr.  Bryan;  if 
he  did  not  like  Mr.  Bryan,  he  could  vote  for  Mr.  McKinley; 
and  if  he  did  not  like  either  Mr.  McKinley  or  Mr.  Bryan,  he 
could  vote  for  Mr.  Debs.  In  point  of  fact,  in  State  and  Na- 
tion, our  officers  are  primarily  selected  for  us  by  a  small, 
self-appointed  committee,  and  the  people  at  the  polls  ex- 
ercise a  veto  power  over  their  selection. 

This  is  partly  a  result  of  'having  an  ignorant  and  an  un- 
interested voting  population.  A  great  body  of  voters  who 
either  do  not  know  or  do  not  much  care  about  political 
questions,  will  necessarily  follow  a  leader  or  leaders,  who- 
ever the  leaders  may  be,  and  will  do  whatever  the  leaders  tell 
them  to  do.  Universal  suffrage,  if  it  is  exercised  by  men  who 
are  either  ignorant  or  indifferent  respecting  political  prin- 
ciples and  political  duties,  necessarily  means  government  by 
an  irresponsible  oligarchy;  though  the  majority  have  this 


DIRECT    PRIMARIES  79 

recourse;  that  they  can,  whenever  they  please,  turn  the  oli- 
garchy out  of  office;  whereupon  a  new  and  sometimes  better 
oligarchy  takes  its  place.  This  is  called  overturning  the  ma- 
chine. In  short,  the  actual  results  of  democratic  institu- 
tions do  not  justify  the  very  optimistic  expectations  of  Jer- 
emy Bentham  as  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  has  interpreted  them  to 
us  in  his  admirable  volumes  on  "The  English  Utilitarians:" 

"There  are  two  primary  principles:  the  'self-preference' 
principle,  in  virtue  of  which  every  man  always  desires  his 
own  greatest  happiness;  and  the  'greatest  happiness'  prin- 
ciple, in  virtue  of  which  'the  right  and  proper  end'  of  gov- 
ernment is  the  'greatest  happiness  to  the  greatest  number.' 
The  'actual  end  of  every  government,  again,  is  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  governors.'  Hence  the  whole  problem  is  to 
produce  a  coincidence  of  the  two  ends,  by  securing  an  identi- 
ty of  interest  between  governors  and  governed.  To  secure 
that  we  have  only  to  identify  the  two  classes,  or  to  put  the 
government  in  the  hands  of  all.  In  a  monarchy  the  ruler 
aims  at  the  interest  of  one — himself;  in  a  'limited  monarchy' 
the  aim  is  at  the  happiness  of  the  king  and  the  small  privil- 
eged class;  in  a  democracy  the  end  is  the  right  one — the 
greatest  happiness  to  the  greatest  number.  .  .  .The  people  will 
naturally  choose  'morally  apt  agents,'  and  men  who  wish 
to  be  chosen  will  desire  truly  to  become  'morally  apt,'  for 
they  can  only  recommend  themselves  by  showing  their  desire 
to  serve  the  general  interest.  'All  experience  testifies  to  this 
theory.'  though  the  evidence  is  'too  bulky'  to  be  given.  Oth- 
er proofs,  however,  may  at  once  be  rendered  superfluous  by 
appealing  to  'the  uninterrupted  and  most  notorious  experi- 
ence of  the  United  States.'  "  * 

There  are  three  answers  to  that  very  optimistic  argument. 
The  first  is  Senator  Clark,  of  Montana;  the  second  is  Sen- 
ator Quay,  of  Pennsylvania;  the  third  is  Richard  Croker,  of 
New  York. 

What  we  have  to  do  is,  in  the  first  place,  to  diminish  the 
ignorant,  the  uninterested  and  careless  class  of  voters;  in 


80  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  second  place,  to  increase  the  power  of  the  interested  and 
thoughtful  class  of  voters.  The  first  is  to  be  accomplished 
not  by  a  formal  educational  or  property  qualification,  be- 
cause the  formal  property  qualification  is  liable  to  develop 
a  class  which  cares  more  for  property  than  it  does  for  funda- 
mental principles  and  because  a  formal  educational  qualifica- 
tion is  always  liable  to  be  misused  and  misconstrued.  Make 
it  a  rule  that  a  man  must  read  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  order  to  vote,  and  the  judges  of  elections  will  be 
rigid  in  their  interpretation  of  the  intellectual  qualifications 
of  one  voter,  and  lax  in  their  interpretation  of  another.  Add 
the  provision  that  he  must  also  understand  the  Constitution, 
and  Democratic  judges  will  be  sure  to  think  that  a  Republican 
voter  does  not  understand,  and  Republican  judges  will  be 
sure  to  think  that  a  Democratic  voter  does  not  understand. 
What  is  needed  is  an  automatically  working  ballot  which 
will  not  only  compel  thought  but  also  consideration  and 
interest — which  will  exclude  not  only  the  ignorant  but  also 
the  careless  voter.  In  Maryland  to-day  there  is  a  proposal 
pending  for  the  use  of  an  Australian  ballot  without  any  party 
emblems  upon  it.*  Simply  the  names  of  the  men  to  be  voted 
for  are  upon  the  ticket.  The  man  who  cannot  read  the  name 
cannot  vote  the  ticket,  for  he  will  not  know  for  whom  he  is 
voting.  The  man  who  does  not  care  enough  about  politics 
to  inquire  about  the  candidates  cannot  vote  for  he  will  have 
no  emblem  to  guide  him.  A  ticket  so  constructed  that  every 
man  who  votes  it  must  know  who  the  men  are  whose  names 
are  on  the  ticket,  and  what  they  represent,  would  automatic- 
ally exclude  from  the  polls  a  large  proportion  of  those  who 
are  careless  voters,  and  practically  all  absolutely  ignorant 
voters.  This  is  the  advantage  of  the  Australian  ballot,  and 
I  have  no  wish  to  see  it  supplemented  by  any  such  provision 
as  that  in  New  York  State,  which  allows  to  the  man  who  de- 
clares that  he  cannot  read  and  write  the  right  to  take  a  po- 
litical friend  with  him  to  show  him  how  to  read  and  how  to 
mark  his  ballot. 
The  other  remedy  is  to  increase  the  power  of  the  careful 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  8l 

and  interested  voters;  and  this  is  to  be  done  by  enabling 
them  to  nominate  as  well  as  to  elect  their  officers.  And  this 
nomination  of  officers  is  to  be  brought  about  by  what  is 
known  as  the  direct  primary. 

It  is  idle  to  tell  busy  men  that  they  ought  to  go  to  the 
primaries;  idle  because  they  are  busy  men;  idle  because  poli- 
tics take  all  the  time  they  can  now  give  to  it  out  of  their 
business  and  personal  affairs;  idle  because,  when  they  get 
to  the  primary,  they  find  a  slate  made  up  for  them  which 
they  must  vote,  or  vote  in  solitary  grandeur  against  it. 
There  may  be  exceptions,  but,  generally  speaking,  the  pri- 
mary as  at  present  conducted  is  a  contrivance  for  enabling 
a  few  men  to  determine  for  whom  the  many  may  vote. 

The  direct  primary  does  away  with  such  primaries  and  with 
the  delegate  conventions  which  grow  out  of  them.  On  cer- 
tain conditions  prescribed  by  the  law,  any  person  may  an- 
nounce himself,  or  be  announced,  as  a  candidate  for  any 
office.  On  the  day  of  registration  every  voter,  when  he  regis- 
ters, drops  a  ballot  in  the  box  which  indicates  whom  he  elects 
to  be  the  candidate  of  his  party.  The  person  receiving  the 
greatest  number  of  Republican  votes  becomes  the  Republican 
candidate,  the  person  receiving  the  greatest  number  of  Demo- 
cratic votes  becomes  the  Democratic  candidate;  the  same 
principle  applies  to  the  candidates  of  other  parties,  including 
any  who  choose  to  regard  themselves  as  Independents.  The 
best  way  to  indicate  both  the  method  and  its  results  is  to 
give  a  concrete  illustration  of  its  operation  in  a  single  in- 
stance: 

"The  direct  method  of  voting  at  primaries  was  first  adopt- 
ed by  the  Republican  party  in  this  county  in  1897.  It  is 
called  the  Crawford  County  system,  deriving  its  name  from 
the  county  first  to  adopt  it.  Any  member  of  the  Republican 
party,  by  registering  his  name  with  the  Republican  County 
Committee,  can  become  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  for 
any  office  he  may  elect.  All  the  members  of  the  party,  on 
a  day  stated,  vote,  as  in  elections,  directly  for  the  man  of 
their  choice.  There  are  often  as  many  as  five  or  seven  can- 
didates for  the  same  nomination.  The  ones  receiving  the 


82  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

highest  number  of  votes  for  the  different  offices  are  declared 
to  be  the  nominees  of  the  party.  Under  the  delegate  system 
an  aspirant  for  political  office  secured  the  consent  of  the 
boss.  Under  the  present  system  this  would  injure  the  can- 
didate's chances  of  success.  Under  the  delegate  system  the 
consent  of  the  boss  was  given  in  return  for  contributions  as- 
sessed according  to  the  emoluments  of  the  respective  offices. 
The  money  thus  pooled  was  used  in  buying  the  votes  of  a 
sufficient  number  of  the  delegates  to  control  the  conven- 
tion. These  delegates  were  chosen  by  about  one-fifth  the 
entire  vote  of  the  party.  How  vicious,  corrupt,  and  oligar- 
chial this  system  had  become  is  illustrated  by  an  editorial  in 
the  Scranton  (Pa.)  'Truth'  of  September  8,  1897,  immediately 
after  the  last  of  the  Conventions,  reporting  that  the  price 
of  a  delegate  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  two  hundred  dol- 
lars, and  that  something  like  twenty  thousand  dollars  had 
been  spent  in  controlling  the  Convention."* 

The  writer  from  whose  report  this  account  is  taken  is  au- 
thority for  the  statement  that  the  nomination  of  Captain 
James  Moir,  as  Mayor,  by  the  direct  primary  system  cost 
him  $98.50,  and  he  adds  that  "the  greatest  compliment  that 
can  be  paid  him  is  that  he  is  the  kind  of  man  who  could 
never  have  been  nominated  under  the  old  system."  In  the 
primary  election  by  which  he  was  nominated  7>°°°  votes 
were  cast.  In  South  Carolina,  out  of  120,000  possible  white 
voters,  over  90,000  participated  in  a  direct  primary  for  Gov- 
ernor. These  facts  indicate  the  three  advantages  of  the  di- 
rect primary:  first,  the  number  of  voters  who  participate  in 
it;  second,  the  removal  of  temptation  to  bribery  by  the  re- 
moval of  the  necessity  for  it;  third,  the  improvement  in  the 
character  of  candidates,  who  are  willing  to  accept  a  nomina- 
tion spontaneously  given  by  all  the  people,  but  are  not  willing 
to  enter  into  competition  for  a  nomination  by  a  committee 
of  professional  politicians. 

The  evils  of  democracy  are  mostly  due  to  corruptions  or 
adulterations  of  democracy;  the  general  remedy  for  the  evils 
of  democracy  is  more  democracy.  Democracy  does  not 
mean  merely  universal  suffrage;  it  means  the  universal  exer- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  83 

cise  of  judgment,  conscience,  and  common  sense  by  every 
man  in  the  community.  And  we  have  not  given  a  fair  trial 
to  democracy  until  every  member  of  the  community  is 
brought  to  exercise  and  act  upon  his  own  judgment,  not 
merely  to  ratify  and  confirm  the  judgment  of  another.  A 
ballot  which  automatically  excludes  the  ignorant  and  in- 
different voter,  and  a  direct  primary  which  enables  all  voters 
who  are  not  ignorant  and  indifferent  to  participate  in  the 
nomination  of  candidates,  will  not  constitute  a  panacea  nor 
exclude  all  corrupt  or  inefficient  officials  from  the  Republic; 
but,  by  decreasing  the  power  of  the  ignorant  and  the  indif- 
erent,  and  increasing  the  power  of  the  intelligent  and  the 
interested,  much  can  be  done  to  overthrow  the  oligarchy 
which  now  too  often  wears  the  democratic  mask,  and  pre- 
tends to  be  the  servant  while  it  is  really  the  master  or  "boss" 
of  the  people. 


Outlook.  69:473-4.    October  26,  1901. 
Direct  Primaries  in  Boston. 

The  brief  experience  of  Boston  with  a  new  primary  elec- 
tion system  has  been  so  satisfactory  that  at  the  Democratic 
State  Convention,  October  4,  a  plank  was  adopted  for  a 
great  extension  of  the  system.  The  situation  in  the  Boston 
Senatorial  districts  had  become  particularly  bad  by  reason 
of  the  trading  of  politicians  in  the  different  wards  and  by  the 
manipulation  of  delegates.  In  the  Legislature  of  1901  a  pe- 
tition was  presented  for  the  abolition  of  Senatorial  conven- 
tions in  the  county  in  which  Boston  is  situated — which  in- 
cluded nine  out  of  the  forty  Senatorial  Districts  in  the  State 
— and  for  the  substitution  of  a  system  of  primary  elections 
within  the  respective  parties.  This  petition  had  a  Demo- 
cratic origin,  but  was  put  into  law  by  a  Republican  Legis- 
lature and  signed  by  a  Republican  Governor,  so  that  there 
is  no  partisanship  in  the  reform  thus  far.  By  this  act  the 


84  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

voters  in  their  respective  ward  caucuses  vote  for  nominees 
of  their  parties  to  go  on  the  ticket  to  be  voted  for  on  the 
Australian  ballot  at  the  State  election  in  November.  After 
the  caucuses  the  figures  for  all  the  wards  in  a  Senatorial  dis- 
trict are  added,  and  the  man  who  has  the  highest  number  of 
votes  is  the  party  nominee  for  State  Senator.  The  party 
member  of  the  State  Committee  is  also  elected  by  the  sev- 
eral caucuses  in  the  same  way,  there  being  one  member  for 
each  Senatorial  district.  This  system  went  into  effect  in  Bos- 
ton this  year,  and  it  has  proved  so  satisfactory  that  an  effort 
is  expected  at  the  coming  session  of  the  Legislature  to  ex- 
tend it  to  the  whole  State.  The  Democratic  plank  on  the 
point  was  as  follows: 

"We  favor  the  establishment  by  law,  in  place  of  separate 
party  caucuses,  of  a  single  primary  election,  conducted  under 
the  regular  election  laws,  at  which  all  party  candidates  or 
delegates  shall  be  chosen  by  means  of  the  Australian  ballot. 
Such  a  measure  is  the  logical  conclusion  of  a  course  of  legis- 
lation tending  steadily  toward  that  end;  it  would  greatly 
simplify  and  purify  the  operation  of  nominating  machinery 
and  increase  public  interest  in  party  action." 

The  Convention  went  so  far  in  its  indorsement  of  primary 
elections  in  place  of  delegate  conventions  that  it  demanded 
the  application  of  the  new  system  in  all  cases  below  the 
State  Convention,  and  even  favored  the  nomination  of  candi- 
dates on  the  State  ticket  by  primary  election  when  five  per 
cent,  of  the  voters  desire  that  method.  The  practical  success 
of  the  experiment  this  year  in  Boston  is  the  essential  fact 
in  this  matter,  looking  at  it  historically.  The  people  have 
had  their  fill  of  delegate  conventions. 


Outlook.  70:745.  March  29,  1902. 
Gains  and  Losses  for  Direct  Primaries. 
Although  political  reformers,  quite  as  much  as  ministers, 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  85 

complain  that  times  of  prosperity  are  times  of  moral  apathy, 
some  reforms  are  steadily  making  headway.  This  winter 
has  witnessed  in  New  York  State  an  awakening  on  the  sub- 
ject of  direct  primaries  which  few  dared  hope  for  a  year  ago. 
Not  only  have  the  anti-machine  elements  in  both  parties  giv- 
en the  reform  increased  support,  but  the  Republican  organ- 
izations in  both  Brooklyn  and  Manhattan  have  to  a  remark- 
able extent  recognized  the  wisdom  of  permitting  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  party  to  nominate  directly  the  party  candi- 
dates. In  Brooklyn  the  reform  has  obtained  the  qualified 
support  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Woodruff,  while  in  Manhat- 
tan the  Republican  Club  of  New  York  County  last  week 
adopted  a  resolution  recommending  "the  adoption  by  law  of 
a  system  of  nominations  for  public  office  by  direct  vote." 
The  discussion  preceding  the  adoption  of  this  resolution  ex- 
posed the  flagrant  way  in  which  delegate  conventions  are 
often  manipulated  so  as  to  defeat  the  wishes  of  constitu- 
encies, and  when  the  vote  was  taken  only  two  votes  were 
recorded  in  the  negative.  It  is  not  expected  that  the  Tam- 
many organization  will  play  into  the  hands  of  the  independ- 
ent Democrats  by  showing  any  such  favor  to  popular  nomin- 
ations, but  the  very  fact  that  popular  nominations  would 
limit  the  power  of  the  Tammany  machine  is  a  strong  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  the  system  with  the  Republican  Legisla- 
ture. Along  with  these  unexpected  gains  in  New  York 
must  be  recorded  an  only  half-expected  loss  in  Indiana.  The 
direct  primary  law  in  that  State  was  a  compromise  measure, 
which  left  the  adoption  of  the  direct  primary  system  optional 
with  the  party  committees,  and  allowed  these  committees 
to  regulate  the  conduct  of  the  primaries.  At  the  Republican 
primary  held  in  Indianapolis  a  fortnight  ago  the  party  ma- 
chine provided  no  booths  in  which  the  voters  could  mark 
their  ballots  in  secret,  and  the  open  marking  of  ballots  on  the 
tables  provided  by  the  committee  was  attended  by  the  pur- 
chase and  sale  of  votes  to  an  alarming  extent.  The  abuses 
of  this  election,  however,  have  fortunately  not  discredited 
even  the  locally  direct  primary  system,  since  the  advocates  of 
the  system  have  all  along  demanded  a  secret  official  ballot, 


86  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

which  the  experiment  proves  to  be  essential.  The  further  fact 
that  this  Indianapolis  primary  brought  to  the  polls  four-fifths 
of  all  the  Republican  voters  of  the  city  demonstrated  the  pow- 
er of  the  direct  primary  to  awaken  civic  interest. 


Outlook.  72:486-7.  November  i,  1902. 

Direct  Nominations  in  Massachusetts. 

An  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  the  cure 
for  the  evils  of  democracy  is  more  democracy  seems  to  be 
afforded  by  the  experience  of  Massachusetts  with  her  trial 
of  direct  nominations  as  a  substitute  for  political  conven- 
tions. This  year  the  second  step  in  the  experiment  has  been 
as  conspicuously  successful  as  the  first  step  was  last  year. 

Attention  all  over  the  State  has  been  drawn  to  the  work- 
ing of  the  new  law  for  direct  nominations  for  candidates 
for  Representatives  in  consequence  of  its  evident  success  in 
the  Republican  caucuses  on  September  24.  The  essential 
section  of  the  Luce  law,  as  it  is  called,  from  the  Somerville 
Representative  who  secured  its  passage  through  the  Leg- 
islature, reads  as  follows: 

"Every  nomination  by  a  political  party  of  a  candidate  for 
representative  in  the  General  Court,  or  any  elective  city 
office  except  a  member  of  the  school  committee  of  Boston, 
to  be  voted  for  only  in  two  or  more  wards  of  one  city,  shall 
be  made  in  caucuses  by  direct  plurality  vote." 

Testimony  to  the  success  of  the  law  comes  from  all  parts 
of  the  State — from  Pittsfield,  from  Brockton,  from  Spring- 
field, from  New  Bedford — while  not  a  word  of  disapproval 
has  been  noticed  from  any  city.  This  evident  public  satis- 
faction is  but  a  repetition  of  the  experience  of  1901,  fol- 
lowing the  adoption  of  the  same  system  for  the  Senatorial 
districts  in  Suffolk  County,  which  includes  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton. The  law  of  1901,  limited  to  territory  in  which  the  pop- 
ulation is  very  compact,  in  order  to  relieve  the  convention's 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  87 

evils  where  they  were  greatest,  applied  to  candidates  for  the 
State  Senate  and  to  members  of  the  State  committees  of 
the  several  parties.  So  general  was  the  satisfaction,  upon  its 
first  trial,  with  the  abolition  of  the  Senatorial  conventions, 
with  their  quarrelings  and  failures  to  represent  the  judg- 
ment of  the  people  of  the  district,  that  at  the  last  session 
of  the  Legislature  various  bills  were  introduced  extending 
the  system  to  the  entire  State,  more  or  less.  Mr.  Luce's 
bill  was  the  most  elaborate.  During  the  previous  summer 
he  had  visited  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,  studying  their 
system  of  primary  elections,  and  his  bill  was  a  sweeping 
document,  applying  to  nearly  everything  but  the  State  con- 
ventions, and  working  radical  revolution  in  the  caucus 
strength.  But  it  was  too  radical  and  sweeping  for  the  Leg- 
islature. Determined  and  wide  opposition  sprang  up  against 
it,  and  all  that  could  be  got  through  was  the  provision 
quoted  above. 

But  it  has  justified  itself  better  than  the  average  member 
expected.  Still  further,  the  second  year's  application  of 
the  law  of  1901  for  the  Suffolk  Senatorial  districts  has  only 
strengthened  the  favorable  impression  made  last  year.  In 
five  of  the  nine  districts  contests  existed  for  the  nomination 
on  the  Republican  ticket.  Under  the  old  system  the  result 
would  not  have  been  positively  settled  until  the  conventions 
of  delegates  elected  by  the  several  wards  in  the  districts 
had  done  their  business.  This  year,  as  soon  as  the  total 
popular  votes  in  the  several  caucuses  had  beeen  added,  the 
result  was  known. 

What  appeals  to  the  public  in  this  reform  is  the  quick 
settlement  of  the  strife,  the  justice  done  to  all  parties,  the 
prevention  of  political  trickery  in  conventions,  and  the  de- 
thronement of  the  professional  politicians.  Care  is  neces- 
sary to  guard  the  caucuses.  Members  of  one  party  must  be 
prevented  from  voting  in  the  caucuses  of  the  other  party, 
but  that  is  a  matter  of  detail.  Such  a  provision  is  equally 
necessary  under  the  old  system,  and  does  not  lie  against 
direct  nominations  exclusively.  Already  the  success  of 
this  system  has  led  to  a  demand  for  extension  of  the  law, 
and  it  is  seriously  proposed  to  carry  it  so  far  as  to  dis- 
continue even  the  State  Convention  itself,  with  its  historic 


88  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

associations.    Doubtless  that  step  will  not  be  taken  for  years, 
but  it  is  significant  that  it  is  contemplated. 


Outlook.  74:537.    July  4,  1903. 
The  Joint  Primary  Plan  in  Massachusetts. 

The  plan  of  direct  primaries,  adopted  in  Massachusetts 
through  the  Luce  Joint  Caucus  Bill,  which  has  just  been 
signed  by  the  Governor,  differs  in  several  respects  from 
the  laws  having  the  same  general  purpose  in  view  adopted  in 
other  States  and  hitherto  described  in  these  columns.  The 
law  takes  effect  in  Boston  this  fall,  but  in  other  cities 
and  towns  its  acceptance  is  to  be  voted  upon  at  the  next 
State  election.  All  caucuses  of  all  parties  are  to  be  held 
at  the  same  time  and  place.  A  would-be  candidate  must 
present  a  nomination  paper  signed  by  at  least  five  voters, 
and  in  the  case  of  higher  officers  by  a  number  of  voters 
equivalent  to  five  for  each  ward.  The  vote  at  the  primary 
will  be  in  all,  or  almost  all,  respects  exactly  like  that  at  the 
election.  It  will  be  in  charge  of  the  paid  election  officers 
who  have  charge  of  elections,  the  two  leading  parties  being 
equally  represented.  The  voter  must  audibly  state  with 
which  party  he  wishes  to  vote.  This  provision  has  been 
criticised  as  opposed  to  the  principles  of  the  secret  ballot, 
but  a  primary  is  not  an  election,  and  it  is  not  unfair  to  ask  the 
man  who  wishes  to  take  part  in  a  party  nomination  to  accept, 
for  the  time  being  at  least,  party  membership.  The  law  pro- 
vides that  voters  on  one  party  shall  not  within  a  year  share  in 
nominating  the  candidates  of  another  party.  This  is  designed 
to  prevent  the  flooding  of  a  primary  as  a  political  trick  by 
one  party  with  votes  really  belonging  to  another  party.  The 
voter  who  affiliates  himself  with  one  party  at  the  first  pri- 
mary he  attends  must  continue  to  act  with  that  party  in 
the  primaries  until  he  decides  to  go  to  the  election  com- 
missioners and  in  writing  change  his  party  affiliation,  and 
even  then  he  must  wait  ninety  days  before  the  change  takes 
effect.  This  law  seems  to  be  an  honest  and  sensible  attempt 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  89 

to  apply  the  principle  of  direct  primaries.  Its  actual  work- 
ing out  will  be  watched  with  great  interest  by  the  public  at 
large. 


Outlook.  75:237.     October  3,  1903. 

More  Victories  for  Direct  Primaries. 

Louisiana  has  now  been  added  to  the  list  of  Southern 
States  in  which  all  candidates  for  State  offices  in  the  dom- 
inant party  are  chosen  directly  by  the  people  at  the  pri- 
maries instead  of  by  delegates  to  State  conventions.  The 
machine,  of  course,  and  the  interests  which  supply  it  with 
the  sinews  of  war,  resisted  the  change,  but  the  popular 
demand  for  it  was  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Ten  years  ago 
it  used  to  be  remarked  very  frequently  that  "it  is  impos- 
sible to  get  voters  to  attend  the  primaries."  To-day  in 
the  South  it  is  only  the  primaries  that  the  voters  do  attend. 
The  regular  elections  are  foregone  conclusions,  and  rel- 
atively few  voters  go  to  the  polls.  It  is  only  through  the 
direct  primaries  that  popular  government  at  the  Soutr 
remains  a  reality.  This  fact  perhaps  accounts  for  the  more 
rapid  growth  of  the  reform  at  the  South  than  at  the  North. 
In  the  North  also,  however,  the  reform  continues  to  make 
rapid  headway — the  growth  of  the  boss  system  having  re- 
vealed the  necessity  of  direct  popular  nominations  to  keep 
the  control  of  the  government  out  of  the  hands  of  a  small 
class  representing  private  interests.  In  Boston  last  week 
there  was  the  first  trial  of  the  new  Massachusetts  law 
providing  that  the  primaries  of  both  parties  be  held  at  the 
same  time  and  place,  and  that  voters  select  the  candidates 
for  the  offices  to  be  filled  instead  of  merely  selecting  dele- 
gates to  perform  this  important  task.  Though  the  officers  to 
be  named  at  last  week's  election  were  unimportant  local 
ones,  the  vote  was  fifty-six  per  cent,  of  the  total  at  the  last 


90  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

presidential  election.  The  only  serious  criticism  brought 
against  the  new  system  was  aimed  at  a  provision  requiring 
voters  to  state  with  what  party  they  voted  at  the  last 
election.  A  few  voters  refused  to  answer  this  inquiry  and 
left  the  polls  without  voting,  while  many  others  answered 
it  under  protest.  This  provision  is  of  course  not  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  direct  primary  system,  and  has  in  fact  been 
opposed  by  nearly  all  the  advocates  of  the  system.  It  was 
incorporated  in  the  Massachusetts  law  in  order  to  meet  the 
objection  that,  unless  the  voters  are  required  to  state  their 
party  allegiance,  the  members  of  one  party  may  take  part 
in  the  primaries  of  the  other  in  order  to  dictate  weak 
nominations.  Experience  shows  that  very  few  men  are 
willing  to  lose  a  vote  in  the  primaries  of  their  own  party 
in  order  to  take  part  in  the  primaries  of  the  other.  If  the 
law  requires  that  the  primaries  of  both  parties  be  held  at 
the  same  time  and  place  and  that  each  voter  shall  cast  but 
a  single  ballot,  it  insures  that  each  party  shall  make  its 
nominations  with  little  if  any  interference  from  corruptible 
elements  in  the  other  party.  The  success  of  the  trial  of  the 
new  law  in  Boston  gives  promise  that  the  direct  primary 
system  will  be  made  mandatory  in  the  other  cities  of  the 
State. 


Outlook.   79:225-9.     January  28,   1905. 

The  Development  of  Self-Government:  Some  Lessons  of  the 
Late  Election.     Charles  J.  Bonaparte. 

"No  man  is  free  who  is  not  master  of  himself";  no  voter 
is  free  who  is  not,  in  truth  and  not  in  mere  semblance,  master 
of  his  vote;  no  people,  whatever  the  name  or  form  of  its 
government,  is  free  unless  its  rulers  are  those,  and  those 
only,  it  would  have  as  rulers.  If  its  action  be  hampered, 
its  wishes  be  overridden,  in  their  choice,  whether  this  con- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  9! 

strain!  be  the  work  of  a  foreign  conqueror,  a  legal  autocrat  or 
oligarchy,  or  an  extra-legal  ruler  or  ruling  body,  a  "boss"' 
or  a  "ring,"  a  "leader,"  a  "machine,"  or  an  "organization," 
then,  in  all  these  cases  alike,  the  result  is  the  same,  the 
people  is  not  free;  a  community  thus  governed  has  not  self- 
government. 

Of  course  it  may  have  a  good  government,  much  better  than 
it  could  give  itself.  Freedom  to  a  baby  means  death;  to 
a  youth  it  means  often  the  wreck  of  all  present  or  future 
usefulness  and  happiness;  even  a  young  man,  left  too  soon 

"Lord  of  himself,  that  heritage  of  woe!" 

may  have  every  reason  to  echo  the  bitter  words  of  the  poet. 
So  a  people,  as  suggested  by  Mr.  Mill,  may  be  in  a  state 
of  "nonage"  socially  and  politically,  which  for  a  time  at 
least  would  make  self-government  in  its  case  no  less  "a 
heritage  of  woe"  than  for  the  untrained,  unformed  individ- 
ual. Such  a  people  may  well  thank  Heaven  if  it  find,  as 
Mr.  Mill  says,  "an  Akbar  or  a  Charlemagne,"  that  is  to  say, 
a  just,  wise,  brave,  unselfish  "boss"  (whether  he  call  him- 
self King,  Emperor,  Dictator,  or  something  else  matters 
little),  or  an  enlightened  and  public-spirited  "ring"  or  "ma- 
chine" (whose  members  may  or  may  not  be  enrolled  in 
a  Golden  Book),  to  guide  its  infant  steps  in  national  life; 
but  the  American  Nation  is  not  such  a  people,  and  our 
political  leaders  and  organizations  fulfill  no  such  self-sac- 
rificing function. 

We  claim  to  be  free,  and,  in  so  far  as  we  are  not  what  we 
claim  to  be,  the  impairment  of  our  liberty  works,  not  for 
good,  but  for  grave  and  shameful  evil,  to  tarnish  our  fair 
fame  as  a  nation,  to  debase  our  politics,  to  degrade  our 
public  men  and  corrupt  individual,  no  less  than  popular, 
morals,  as  well  as  to  waste  our  material  resources,  lessen 
general  wealth  and  comfort,  and  clog  civilization.  Where 
Americans  most  thoroughly  and  most  truly  govern  them- 
selves, they  are  best  governed;  where  they  are,  or  may 
now  seem  to  be,  too  lazy  or  too  luxurious  or  too  much  en- 
grossed by  merely  personal  interests  to  give  time  and 
thought  to  their  own  government,  those  who  govern  them, 


2  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

govern  them  ill,  and  the  worse,  the  more  completely  the 
people  abdicate  its  duties  and  its  sovereignty.  Among  us 
the  development  of  self-government  means  the  growth  of 
righteousness:  what  hope  for  such  growth  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  results  of  our  recent  elections? 
I. — The  Result  in  Missouri.  Political  Weakness  of  Iniquity. 

In  1900,  McKinley  polled  314,092  votes  in  Missouri;  Bry- 
an 351,922.  Flory,  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor, 
obtained  3,813  more  votes  than  the  former;  Dockery,  his 
Democratic  opponent,  1,877  less  than  the  latter.  When  the 
last  Presidential  nominations  were  made,  the  State  was  con- 
sidered by  most  politicians  of  both  parties  safely  Demo- 
cratic; but  the  candidacy  of  Joseph  W.  Folk  obliged  the 
Republicans  to  deal  with  a  very  interesting  problem  of 
political  strategy. 

Mr.  Folk  was  a  public  prosecutor  who  had  gained  much 
credit  by  vigorously  prosecuting  certain  notorious  criminals 
of  great  political  influence  in  his  own  party  organization. 
He  had  done,  it  is  true,  no  more  than  his  plain  duty,  the  duty 
he  was  chosen,  sworn,  and  paid  to  do;  but  he  had  done  it  in 
earnest  and  not  merely  made  a  show  of  doing  it,  had  really 
tried  to  bring  "boodlers"  and  "grafters"  to  actual  punish- 
ment; and  such  conduct  would  seem  to  have  been  sufficiently 
noteworthy  in  an  officer  intrusted  with  some  share  in  the 
administration  of  justice  in  Missouri  to  gain  him  at  once 
the  admiration  and  confidence  of  the  public  and  the  bitter 
hatred  of  men  who  prey  upon  the  public.  The  latter  had 
tried  hard  and  had  failed  to  prevent  his  nomination;  they 
were  no  less  ready  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  elect  his 
competitor,  should  he  have  one,  for  there  is  no  politics  in 
systematic  and  professional  iniquity;  and  it  was  "up  to"  the 
Republican  politicians  to  say  whether  he  should  have  a 
competitor. 

I  have  called  this  a  question  of  "political  strategy,"  for 
it  undoubtedly  seemed  such,  and  such  only,  to  those  who 
decided  it;  that  it  appeared  to  their  minds  in  any  wise  a 
question  of  morals  I  think  altogether  unlikely.  Would  it 
pay  their  party  better  to  bid  for  the  aid  of  the  "Boodle 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES 


93 


Ring"  by  nominating  a  candidate  against  Folk,  or  to  assure 
his  election  by  making  no  nomination  for  Governor,  and 
hope  for  reward  in  the  increased  vote  which  popular  ap- 
proval and  gratitude  might  bring  to  the  National  ticket 
in  Missouri  and  elsewhere? 

Such  was  the  problem;  and  they  chose  the  former  course. 
What  they  have  said  were  their  reasons  need  not  detain 
us;  what  these  were  in  fact  can  be  a  matter  of  conjecture 
only,  but  of  conjecture  founded  on  a  wide  experience.  They 
probably  believed  the  State's  electoral  vote  lost  anyhow,  but 
thought  the  partisan  excitement  of  a  Presidential  campaign 
would  keep  its  supporters  in  line  for  the  whole  ticket,  and 
the  money  and  intrigues  of  Folk's  Democratic  enemies,  con- 
centrated in  hostility  to  him  alone,  might  draw  enough  Dem- 
ocratic votes  to  his  competitor  to  give  them  a  Republican 
Governor  as  a  consolation  prize.  Let  us  note  the  outcome. 

Roosevelt  obtained  321,449  votes,  or  7,357  more  than 
McKinley,  while  Parker  polled  only  296,312,  or  55,610  less 
than  Bryan — results  in  themselves  striking  and  significant, 
but  due  to  general  causes,  evidently  weakened  rather  than 
fortified  in  their  action  by  the  local  circumstances.  Wai- 
bridge  for  Governor  polled  296,552  votes,  24,917  less  than 
Roosevelt,  and  21,352  less  than  Flory  in  1900;  while  Folk 
received  326,652  votes,  or  30,320  more  than  Parker,  and  was 
elected  by  30,100  plurality.  The  open  enmity  of  the  "bood- 
lers"  far  outweighed,  therefore,  as  a  source  of  political 
strength,  any  aid  they  could  render:  so  far  from  saving 
the  Governorship  from  a  political  wreck  through  a  tacit 
alliance  with  Folk's  enemies,  the  eminently  "practical"  pol- 
iticians who  guided  the  course  of  the  Missouri  Republicans 
exposed  their  party  to  a  mortifying  discomfiture  in  the  con- 
test for  this  one  office  at  the  moment  of  an  otherwise  com- 
plete and  brilliant  victory. 

For  one  in  public  life  here,  the  notorious  hatred  of 
men  constitutes  a  handicap  always  perilous  and  usually  fatal 
political  asset;  avowed  or  even  suspected  support  from  such 
men  constitutes  a  handicap  always  perilous  and  usually  fatal 
to  political  success. 


4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

II. — The    Result   in   Wisconsin.      Political   Weakness   of 
Wealth. 

Wisconsin  was  formerly  a  doubtful  State,  but  the  issue 
of  honest  money  seems  to  have  made  it  safely  Republican 
As  it  became  such,  however,  it  became  likewise  the  scene 
of  a  prolonged  and  bitter  contest  within  the  Republican 
party,  a  contest  which  gradually  assumed  the  shape,  so 
familiar  in  the  history  of  ancient  Greece  or  mediaeval 
Italy,  of  a  strugle  between  an  established  oligarchy  and 
a  "demagogue,"  suspected  and  accused  by  his  adversaries 
of  seeking  to  become  a  "tyrant."  I  place  in  quotation- 
marks  these  two  question-begging  terms,  to  show  that  I  use 
them  in  their  original  and  not  in  their  modern  or  ethical 
sense.  Governor  La  Follette  has  led  a  popular  revolt  in 
his  party  against  its  "machine,"  and  his  enemies  say  he 
aims  to  become  an  omnipotent  "boss,"  controlling  a  per- 
fected "machine"  of  his  own;  had  he  lived  in  the  days  and 
land  of  Pisistratus  and  Solon,  he  would  have  called  him- 
self a  "demagogue,"  and  been  charged  with  meditating 
"tyranny." 

The  merits  of  this  controversy  need  not  detain  us,  but 
it  has  two  features  worthy  of  a  moment's  attention.  The  in- 
fluences controlling  the  Republican  organization  and  against 
which  La  Follette  has  contended  were,  or  are  generally 
believed  to  have  been,  wielded  by  certain  very  wealthy  men 
and  corporations,  so  that  his  fight  has  been,  at  least  in 
popular  belief,  that  of  a  man  against  money-bags.  Moreover, 
the  money-bags,  or  those  who  held  and  on  occasion  opened 
them  took  the  view,  to  which  capital  has  been  always  and 
everywhere  prone,  in  politics,  that  "all  is  for  the  best  in 
this  best  of  all  possible  worlds,"  or,  at  all  events,  if  there  be 
anything  amiss,  whoever  may  try  to  set  this  aright  will  do 
more  harm  than  good;  they  are  "stand-patters,"  and  have 
left  to  their  enemy  the  role  of  a  professed  reformer  of 
abuses. 

These  two  characteristics,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  these 
two  aspects  of  the  same  characteristic,  of  the  contest  in 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  95 

Wisconsin,  make  its  result  interesting.  In  1904  Roosevelt 
obtained  there  14,110  more  votes  than  McKinley  had  in 
1900,  Parker  polled  35,127  less  than  Bryan  received  four 
years  before:  the  State  voted  on  National  issues  much  as  was 
to  have  been  expected  in  view  of  its  votes  in  the  past  and 
of  the  simultaneous  votes  of  other  states.  The  real  interest 
of  the  election,  however,  lay  in  the  strenuous  effort  made  to 
defeat  La  Follette  through  a  separate  Republican  nom- 
ination, and,  to  judge  of  the  results  of  this  effort,  it  will 
be  more  instructive  to  compare  the  Republican  and  Demo- 
cratic votes  for  Governor  with  those  of  two  years  previ- 
ously. In  1902  Mr.  La  Follette  had  polled  193,417  votes 
as  a  candidate  for  his  present  office,  his  Democratic  com- 
petitor, Mr.  Rose,  polling  145,818;  in  1904  the  possibility  of 
victory  increased  the  Democratic  vote  to  175,301,  but  La 
Follette's  also  rose  to  227,253,  so  that,  with  all  the  "bar'ls" 
tapped  to  defeat  him,  his  plurality  over  Mr.  Peck  was  actr 
ually  4,353  more  than  it  had  been  over  Mr.  Rose. 

Many  persons  have  feared,  many  still  fear,  lest  the  Amer- 
ican people  be  one  day  enslaved  by  its  own  money;  I  do 
not  share  these  fears.  I  believe  that,  in  general,  for  each 
vote  bought  two  or  more  votes  are  lost  through  its  pur- 
chase, and  the  more,  the  more  undisguised  the  barter;  that 
greater  cause  for  concern  exists  lest  mere  enmity  to  pro- 
ductive and  beneficent  wealth,  or  the  affectation  of  such  en- 
mity, may  prove  a  profitable  stock  in  trade  to  dangerous 
and  noxious  counterfeits  of  statesmen.  The  two  victories 
of  McKinley  have,  indeed,  gone  far  to  remove  any  reason- 
able apprehension  of  the  latter  peril;  as  to  the  former, 
it  can  hardly  seem  serious  to  one  who  knows  and  reflects 
upon  the  recent  result  in  Wisconsin. 

III. — Results    in    Minnesota    and    Massachusetts,    in    Illinois 
and   New  York.     Decay  of  Party  Discipline. 

A  patriot,  typical  of  a  class  still  too  common  among  us, 
said  once  that  his  ballot  would  be  cast  for  the  devil  were 
his  Satanic  Majesty  the  regular  nominee  of  his  party.  As 


96  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

I  have  said,  such  voters  are  yet  too  numerous  for  the  public 
good,  but  their  number  is  plainly  dwindling;  political  man- 
agers are  learning  by  an  experience  sad  for  them  that  the 
odor  of  brimstone  costs  votes  to  a  candidate,  however  "reg- 
ular." Partly  through  the  educational  effects  of  the  Aus- 
tralian ballot,  partly  through  the  softening  of  political  prej- 
udice resulting  from  frequent  participation  in  non-partisan 
movements  such  as  those  for  Civil  Service  Reform  and 
good  city  government,  partly  from  the  mere  growth  of  the 
community  in  enlightenment  and  common  sense,  more  and 
more  of  our  citizens  each  year  think  for  themselves  and  vote 
as  they  think,  and  less  and  less  ask  their  respective  party 
organizations  to  think  for  them  and  to  tell  them  how  to 
vote.  Some  striking  illustrations  of  this  truth  are  furnished 
by  the  late  elections. 

In  Massachusetts  and  in  Minnesota  the  Republican  can- 
didates for  Governor  were  somehow  unpopular;  for  some 
reasons,  good  or  bad,  or  partly  good  and  partly  bad,  the 
people  didn't  like  either  of  them.  Perhaps,  in  each  case, 
the  candidate  ought  to  have  been  liked  better  than  he  was; 
but,  however  this  may  have  been,  he  wasn't;  and  there  is 
little  doubt,  indeed  no  doubt  at  all,  that  these  facts  were 
well  known  to  the  Republican  managers  in  both  States. 
They  thought,  however,  that  they  had  safe  margins:  McKin- 
ley  had  carried  Minnesota  in  1900  by  77,560  plurality,  Van 
Sant,  for  Governor,  two  years  later  by  56,487;  Massachusetts 
had  gone  Republican  in  1900  by  81,869,  and  in  1903  elected 
the  very  Governor  just  defeated  by  35,984.  Conditions  might 
not,  indeed  have  justified  what  Mr.  Croker  called  a  "yaller 
dog"  ticket  in  either  State;  but  such  a  ticket  was  not 
thought  of;  and  the  statesmen  probably  believed  that,  with 
the  candidates  offered  and  in  a  Presidential  year,  malcon- 
tents might  be  prudently  asked,  "Well!  what  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it?" 

What  they  did  about  it  was  to  give  Mr.  Roosevelt  almost 
unprecedented  majorities,  but  to  leave  both  the  unappreci- 
ated gubernatorial  candidates  to  the  pleasures  of  private 
life.  In  Minnesota  the  Republican  National  ticket  received 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  97 

votes  and  161,464  plurality,  while  Mr.  Dunn's  vote 
was  only  141,847,  and  he  was  defeated  by  6,250  plurality,  his 
competitor  polling  148,097  votes  to  Parker's  55,187.  Gov- 
ernor Bates  was  no  less  unlucky;  he  received  1,003  less  votes 
than  he  had  polled  the  year  before  and  59,141  less  than 
Roosevelt,  while  Mr.  Douglas  had  70,970  more  votes  than 
Gaston  in  1903,  and  68,924  more  than  Parker. 

These  results  may  be  fruitfully  compared  with  those 
in  a  State  where  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor 
was  no  less  heartily  approved  by  the  people  than  that  for 
President:  Illinois  seems  to  have  been  such  a  State.  Roose- 
velt obtained  there  34,760  more  votes  than  McKinley  in  1900, 
while  Deneen  for  Governor  polled  54,282  more  than  Yates 
in  the  same  year.  It  is  true  that  Roosevelt's  plurality  was 
a  little  larger  than  Deneen's  (305,039  against  299,149),  but 
the  overwhelming  success  of  the  latter  shows  none  the 
less  conclusively  why  candidates  unlike  him  met  elsewhere 
a  fate  so  widely  different. 

It  may  be  fair  to  here  consider  the  experience  of  New 
York,  for  this  seems,  in  some  measure,  a  qualifying  illus- 
tration, although  I  think  it  such  in  semblance  only.  In  1902 
Mr.  Coler,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor,  obtained 
22,988  votes  less  than  Bryan  had  polled  in  1900,  a  loss  for 
which  the  decreased  interest  of  a  non-Presidential  year 
more  than  fully  accounts;  Mr.  Odell's  vote  fell  off  156,842 
from  that  of  McKinley — sufficient  proof,  it  was  generally 
believed,  with  apparent  reason,  of  the  candidate's  marked 
unpopularity.  In  1904  Mr.  Higgins  was  expected  to  suffer 
from  Mr.  Odell's  indorsement,  and  seemingly  he  did:  his 
vote  was  46,269  less  than  Roosevelt's,  8,728  less  than  Mc- 
Kinley's  four  years  previously;  moreover,  his  adversary's  ex- 
ceeded Parker's  by  48,723  and  Bryan's  by  54,318;  neverthe- 
less, so  thorough  and  decisive  was  the  discredit  of  the  entire 
Democratic  ticket  that  Higgins  received  no  less  than  80,560 
plurality,  a  heavy  falling  off  from  Roosevelt's  175,552  and 
even  from  McKinley's  143,606,  but  nearly  ten  times  what 
Odell  obtained  in  1902. 

This  result  shows  to  my  mind  the  exercise  of,  to  say  the 


98  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

least,  no  less  discrimination  by  the  people  of  New  York 
than  by  the  people  of  Massachusetts  and  of  Minnesota; 
Herrick  had  not  the  good  fortune  of  Douglas  and  Johnson, 
not  because  the  voters  cast  their  ballots  more  blindly  in 
New  York,  but  because,  whatever  may  have  been  the  weak- 
ness of  his  competitor,  it  was  in  large  measure  offset  by  his 
own:  the  people  weighed  the  merits  and  demerits  of  both 
candidates,  and  would  not  be  forced  to  choose  one  merely 
because  in  the  other,  or  the  other's  principal  backer,  there 
was  some  room  for  improvement. 

Who  Are  the  People? 

Since  the  time  of  the  Three  Tailors  of  Tooley  Street,  and, 
indeed,  much  longer,  this  has  been  matter  of  dispute  in 
politics.  When  we  say  "the  people  of  Massachusetts"  and 
"the  people  of  Missouri"  wished  Roosevelt  for  President,  and 
yet  Folk  in  the  one  case,  and  Douglas  in  the  other,  for 
Governor,  we  are  confronted  by  the  undeniable  facts  that 
only  a  comparatively  small  minority  of  the  voters  in  either 
State  can  be  shown  to  have  entertained  both  these  wishes. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  figures,  about  one  cit- 
izen in  thirteen  of  those  who  wanted  Roosevelt,  also  wanted 
Folk,  about  one  in  eleven  of  those  who  wanted  Folk  didn't 
want  Parker.  In  Massachusetts  the  proportions  were,  it  is 
true,  a  good  deal  larger:  over  one-fifth  of  Roosevelt's  sup- 
porters wouldn't  support  Bates;  considerably  more  than 
one-fourth  of  Douglas's  wouldn't  support  Parker.  Neverthe- 
less, even  in  Massachusetts,  if  we  add  the  ballots  cast  for 
both  Roosevelt  and  Bates  to  those  cast  for  both  Parker 
and  Douglas,  we  obtain  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
entire  vote  polled,  so  that  what  we  have  described  as  "the 
will  of  the  people"  appears  to  be  the  will  of  but  a  few  among 
the  individuals  composing  the  people. 

To  understand  this  we  must  remember  that  in  the  human 
body  politic,  as  in  the  human  body  physical,  development 
of  will  power  is  a  specialized  function.  The  former  has  al- 
ways its  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  to  do  as 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  99 

they  are  bid,  like  the  hands  and  feet,  the  arms  and  legs; 
locomotor  ataxia  is  no  less  a  malady  in  politics  than  in 
physiology.  Other  classes  are  its  vital  automata,  working, 
as  do  the  heart  and  lungs,  at  their  several  treadmills,  with 
no  thought  beyond  their  daily  tasks  and  daily  needs,  yet 
on  whose  continued  labor  depends  its  continued  life.  The 
hunger  for  gain  of  still  others  among  its  members  makes 
them,  like  the  stomach,  in  seeming  blindly  selfish  and  greedy, 
but,  under  proper  control,  none  the  less  indispensable  to 
its  health;  like  a  man,  a  community  languishes  when  it  loses 
its  appetite.  Finally,  it  has  the  equivalent  of  a  brain,  the 
seat  of  its  political  consciousness  and  the  source  of  its 
political  will,  an  organ  which,  in  politics,  thinks  and  decides 
for  its  whole  mass. 

The  brain  is  always  a  small  portion  of  the  organism,  even 
in  man  only  two  or  three  percent.,  but  its  proportionate 
size  grows  steadily  as  we  ascend  the  scale  of  physical 
being.  If  one  man  may  say  truthfully,  or  with  any  approach 
to  truth,  "L'Etat,  c'est  moi,"  the  State  of  which  he  speaks 
has,  politically,  but  the  rudimentary  brain  of  a  fish  or  a  rep- 
tile. Now,  this  language,  or  its  equivalent  in  colloquial 
American,  may  be  used  with  quite  as  much  justification  by 
one  of  our  "bosses"  as  by  the  Grand  Roi;  when  "the  old 
man"  is  "the  whole  thing"  in  our  public  life;  when  what 
he  says  "goes"  in  legislation  and  administration;  when  his 
smile  makes  and  his  frown  unmakes  our  legal  rulers,  it  is  a 
matter  of  detail  whether  he  wear  a  crown  or  a  plug  hat, 
drink  champagne  or  bad  whisky,  receive  the  homage  of 
his  courtiers  in  a  palace  or  "jolly"  the  "boys"  in  a  corner 
groggery;  in  the  one  case  no  less  than  in  the  other,  he  is 
the  people's  political  brain;  for  political  purposes,  he  is 
"the  people." 

Our  late  elections  show  clearly  that  he  and  his  like  are 
not  the  American  people  now,  and  at  least  tend  to  show,  so 
far  as  we  may  forecast  the  future,  that  they  will  grow  less 
and  less  the  people  as  the  people  shall  grow  stronger  and 
richer.  For  some  among  us  our  National  greatness  and 
our  National  wealth  are  causes  of  anxiety,  even  of  alarm, 


100  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

nor  would  I  treat  such  fears  lightly;  but  the  lesson  of  last 
November  is  a  lesson  of  hope;  on  the  whole,  the  people 
then  chose  for  itself,  and,  on  the  whole,  it  chose  wisely  and 
well. 


Outlook.  79:611.     March  u,   1905. 
The  Primary  Law  of  North  Dakota. 

The  movement  toward  the  nomination  of  public  officers  by 
direct  vote  of  the  people  and  the  abolition  of  the  so- 
called  convention  system  has  received  a  stimulus  by  the  pas- 
sage of  a  primary  law  in  North  Dakota  which  has  just  been 
signed  by  Governor  Sarles,  and  by  the  agitation  in  favor 
of  primary  election  by  the  Legislatures  of  South  Dakota 
and  other  Western  States.  North  Dakota's  primary  law  is 
the  result  of  a  compromise  between  the  radical  and  con- 
servative political  forces  of  the  State,  the  former  favoring 
a  sweeping  provision  which  would  include  all  State  officers, 
and  the  latter  a  law  which  would  exempt  from  its  operation 
the  Governor  and  most  of  the  leading  State  officers.  The 
compromise  law  covers  city  and  county  officers  and  mem- 
bers of  the  legislature,  but  exempts  judges  and  other  State 
officers.  To  satisfy  the  radical  forces,  however,  the  conserv- 
ative members  of  the  Legislature  consented  to  a  provision 
by  which  delegates  to  the  State  convention  will  be  elected  by 
direct  vote,  thus  doing  away  with  county  conventions.  The 
North  Dakota  primary  is  a  notable  contrast  to  the  new  Wis- 
consin law  which  was  approved  by  the  people  at  the  last 
election  and  will  go  into  effect  this  fall.  The  Wisconsin  law, 
which  is  largely  the  result  of  Senator  Robert  M.  La  Follette's 
labors,  is  perhaps  the  most  sweeping  primary  law  in  the 
United  States.  It  covers  all  State  officers  from  the  Gov- 
ernor down,  except  judges  and  the  State  Superintendent  of 
Schools.  A  unique  feature  of  the  law  is  that  it  provides  for 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  101 

the  nomination  of  candidates  for  United  States  Senator  by 
direct  vote  of  the  people.  The  supposition  is  that  the  can- 
didate nominated  by  the  people  will  be  elected  by  the  Legisla- 
ture. This  is  about  as  near  an  approach  to  popular  election 
of  United  States  Senators  as  can  be  made  without  the  pas- 
sage of  an  amendment  to  the  United  States  Constitution. 
The  Legislature  of  Minnesota,  which  was  one  of  the  first 
States  to  adopt  a  primary  law,  is  in  the  midst  of  a  vigorous 
debate  as  to  the  advisability  of  extending  the  law  to  all 
State  officers.  The  Minnesota  system,  which  is  very  sim- 
ilar to  the  one  adopted  by  North  Dakota,  has  worked  in 
a  fairly  satisfactory  manner,  and  there  is  a  strong  sentiment 
in  favor  of  extending  it  to  cover  the  Governor,  Attorney- 
General,  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  other  State 
officers  now  nominated  by  State  conventions.  A  unique 
plan  is  under  consideration  and  will  probably  be  adopted. 
This  plan  provides  for  the  holding  of  State  conventions  and 
for  the  submission  of  the  three  candidates  for  each  office 
receiving  the  largest  votes  to  the  people  to  be  voted  upon 
at  the  primary  election  held  in  September.  This  plan  will 
prevent  a  multiplicity  of  candidates  and  will  provide  for  the 
adoption  of  party  platforms  by  representative  conventions. 


World's  Work.    6:3715-6.  August,  1903. 

The   Progress   of  the   "Direct   Primary   Reform." 

Direct  primary  elections  have  at  length  reached  Massa- 
chusetts— a  political  reform  born  in  Kansas  and  tried  in 
as  new  a  State  as  Oregon  before  being  publicly  agitated 
in  the  older  communities.  The  principle  for  which  a  Dem- 
ocratic candidate  in  Michigan  and  a  Republican  candidate 
in  Wisconsin  made  the  last  campaign  for  the  governorship 
was  accepted  in  Massachusetts  by  both  great  parties  with 
an  enthusiasm  that  emphasized  the  purely  popular  quality 
of  the  system. 


102  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

The  direct  primary  means  simply  the  replacing  of  nom- 
inating conventions  for  party  candidates  by  a  system  of 
choosing  candidates  in  a  regular  election  by  the  ordinary 
voters.  Indeed,  so  closely  was  election  day  procedure  copied 
in  the  famous  Hennepin  County  system  in  Minnesota  that 
citizens  on  registering  as  voters  received  a  bunch  of  party 
ballots  pinned  together.  Each  voter  retired  to  a  booth, 
marked  his  choice  of  candidates  on  his  own  party  ballot  and 
then  deposited  the  whole  set  in  the  ballot-box.  Nomina- 
tions in  this  way  differed  very  little  from  elections.  When 
the  system  had  been  tried  it  proved  unsatisfactory,  and 
Michigan  remodeled  the  law,  requiring  each  voter  to  name 
his  party,  and  permitting  him  then  to  take  only  his  party 
ballot.  This  is  the  procedure  now  commanded  by  the  Mas- 
sachusetts law. 

The  essence  of  the  reform  is  that  the  direct  primaries  be 
mandatory  and  under  legal  supervision.  In  the  South,  where 
many  States  have  direct  primaries,  the  machinery  of  the 
system  is  not  legally  controlled,  but  in  party  hands.  Mr. 
Ernst  Meyer,  who  published  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  sub- 
ject in  "Direct  Primary  Legislation,"  quotes  a  party  rule 
in  South  Carolina,  which  has  shut  out  Negro  voters,  thus: 

"Every  Negro  applying  for  membership  in  a  Democratic 
club,  or  offering  to  vote  in  a  Democratic  primary  election, 
must  produce  a  written  statement  of  ten  reputable  white 
men  who  shall  swear  that  they  know  of  their  own  knowl- 
edge that  the  applicant  or  voter  cast  his  ballot  for  General 
Hampton  in  1876  and  has  voted  the  Democratic  ticket  con- 
tinuously ever  since." 

Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  and  other  Northern  States,  have 
direct  primaries  not  unlike  the  Southern  ones.  In  Indiana, 
a  voter  who  cannot  declare  that  he  voted  the  ticket  of  his 
chosen  party  in  the  last  election  is  not  allowed  to  vote  in 
the  primary.  But  in  New  Jersey,  Maryland,  Minnesota,  and 
now  in  Massachusetts,  the  system  follows  in  general  the 
revised  Hennepin  County  plan,  though  the  laws  of  no  two 
States  are  quite  alike.  The  people  of  Wisconsin  and  Mich- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  103 

igan  undoubtedly  desire  direct  primaries,  but  the  State 
Senate  in  each  case  blocks  the  way. 

The  flaw  in  the  system  is  that  a  compact  faction,  even 
a  base  one,  can  outvote  elements  that  do  not  combine.  The 
worst  elements  of  both  parties  are  said  to  have  combined 
to  nominate  the  notorious  Mayor  Ames,  of  Minneapolis. 
In  South  Carolina  last  summer  the  four  anti-Tillman  can- 
didates for  the  Senate  received  nearly  twice  as  many  votes 
as  the  two  Tillman  candidates,  yet  the  two  Tillman  men 
went  on  the  party  ticket  as  nominees:  their  faction  had 
centred  its  forces;  the  other  had  not.  Yet  in  Minnesota, 
which  has  tried  the  system  longer  than  any  other  State — 
for  Oregon's  direct  primary  law  was  speedily  declared  un- 
constitutional— the  system  is  declared  to  be  working  well. 

The  workings  of  the  Massachusetts  law  will  be  watched 
with  especial  interest,  since  under  it  a  voter  is  permitted 
to  declare  allegiance  to  a  national  party  in  one  primary 
and  enroll  if  he  wishes  with  an  opposing  citizen's  party  in 
the  primary  for  municipal  nominations. 


Municipal  Affairs.     2:177-81.     June,  1898. 

Reform  of  the  Primary.     George  L.   Record. 
The   Convention  System — An  Evil. 

We  have  seen  this  system  in  complete  working  order  in 
some  of  our  states  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  fairly  within 
the  truth  to  state  that  the  people  have  no  choice  whatever 
in  the  selection  of  their  party  candidates.  That  this  should 
be  so  is  natural,  and,  on  reflection,  the  reason  for  it  immedi- 
ately appears.  A  convention  is  made  up  of  delegates  who  are 
selected  at  the  primaries.  These  primaries  are  under  the 
control  of  political  parties  and  are  held  at  times  and  places 
selected  by  the  party  leaders.  The  time  of  holding  the  pri- 
maries is  usually  inconvenient,  and  the  place  is  usually  both 
inconvenient  and  obscure.  The  actual  voting  is  surrounded 


104  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

by  no  safeguards.  The  delegate  usually  has  not  committed 
himself  to  any  candidate.  The  average  voter,  therefore,  is 
confronted  by  this  condition:  He  seldom  knows  where  and 
when  his  primary  is  to  be  held;  if  he  does  know,  his  experi- 
ence tells  him  that,  if  he  goes  to  that  primary,  he  will  find 
on  the  ticket,  especially  in  cities,  a  list  of  men,  nearly  all  of 
whom  are  comparatively  unknown  to  him;  further,  he  has 
no  knowledge  of  the  candidate  for  whom  the  delegate  will 
cast  his  vote  in  the  convention.  Here  is  the  root  of  the  evil. 
Here  is  the  explanation  of  the  apathy  of  the  average  voter 
in  reference  to  primaries.  Here  is  the  true  and  philosophical 
explanation  of  wh}'  the  average  voter  will  not  attend  the  pri- 
mary. Broadly  speaking,  the  reason  is  that  at  such  primary 
he  performs  no  useful  function.  He  expresses  no  real  choice, 
and  he  influences  in  no  way  the  selection  of  the  candidate 
of  his  party.  The  average  man  has  a  definite  and  positive 
preference  as  to  who  shall  be  the  candidate  of  his  party  for 
a  given  office.  This  is  true  in  the  city  and  in  the  country. 
The  convention  system  prevents  the  average  voter  from  ex- 
pressing this  choice  or  preference,  and  thus  destroys  all  in- 
terest in  the  primary. 

Consider  our  experience  relative  to  the  election  of  a 
president.  It  was  the  intention  of  the  founders  of  our  gov- 
ernment that  the  people  should  vote  for  electors  in  the  dif- 
ferent states.  These  electors  were  to  come  together  at  a 
stated  time  and  select  as  president  of  the  United  States  the 
man,  who,  in  their  judgment,  was  best  fitted  for  the  position. 
These  electors  were  really  delegates  to  a  convention,  and 
were  to  use  their  judgment  and  exercise  their  discretion.  But 
as  we  all  know,  this  system  soon  fell  into  disuse,  and  now  the 
elector  exercises  no  discretion  or  preference  of  his  own.  Sup- 
pose the  system  had  continued  as  it  was  planned.  Sup- 
pose in  the  year  1896  we  had  been  called  on  in  the  different 
states  to  vote  for  electors  who  were  not  pledged  in  any  way 
as  to  whom  they  should  select  as  president,  but  were  at  lib- 
erty to  select  a  democrat,  or  a  republican,  or  a  populist,  or 
a  prohibitionist,  or  some  man  who  had  not  publicly  been 
mentioned  as  a  candidate.  How  much  interest  would  be 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  10$ 

taken  in  such  an  election?  What  percentage  of  the  voters 
would  attend  the  polls  on  election  day?  The  answer  is  plain. 
Such  a  system  would  destroy  all  interest  in  the  election.  Very 
few  would  even  go  to  the  polls*  and  general  apathy  would 
exist.  That  is  the  trouble  with  the  primary  as  it  exists  to- 
day. The  selection  of  a  delegate  is  neither  interesting,  use- 
ful or  profitable.  It  involves  the  taking  of  pains  and  the  in- 
curring of  trouble  for  no  tangible  purpose.  In  the  city,  the 
primary  is  usually  held  in  the  back  part  of  a  saloon  for  an 
hour  in  the  evening  and  on  insufficient  notice.  A  tired  man 
will  not  leave  his  home  to  attend  this  primary  for  the  pur- 
pose of  selecting  from  several  men,  more  or  less  obscure, 
one  or  two  delegates  whose  action  at  a  convention  to  be 
held  at  a  distant  day  he  cannot  forecast.  This  is  the  rule  of 
human  experience  and  is  perfectly  natural. 

After  the  delegates  are  chosen,  between  the  time  of  their 
selection  and  the  convention,  they  are  subjected  to  all  kinds 
of  improper  influence  for  and  against  certain  candidates. 
The  average  delegate  hopes  that  his  -personal  fortunes  will 
be  affected  by  the  selection  of  this  or  that  man,  and  the  ac- 
tual selection  of  candidates  under  these  conditions  is  the  re- 
sult of  motives  among  which  that  of  expected  personal  ad- 
vantage is  predominant. 

Direct  Vote  at  the  Primary. 

What,  then,  is  the  remedy?  It  is  the  abolution  of  the  con- 
vention system,  root  and  branch,  and  the  substitution  there- 
for of  a  system  providing  for  the  selection  of  the  candidates 
of  political  parties  by  direct  voting  at  primary  elections, 
called  at  a  convenient  time  and  place,  and  conducted  by  pub- 
lic officials.  As  a  result  of  many  years  of  study  of  the  ex- 
isting political  conditions  and  the  causes  thereof,  I  have 
worked  out  a  primary  system  which,  I  believe,  will  establish 
conditions  of  political  life  and  political  action  which  this 
generation  has  never  known,  and  which  would  be  fatal  to 
the  boss  and  the  machine. 

The  system,  in  substance,  is  as  follows: 

I.     All  conventions  of  delegates  are  abolished  and  nomi- 


I06  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

nations  are  made  by  direct  vote  of  the  people,  a  plurality 
ruling. 

2.  The  first  registry  day  is  placed  four  or  five  weeks  be- 
fore election  day,  and  is  made  a  primary  or  nominating  day 
for  all  parties.     The  registry  board  at  the  several  places  of 
registry  acts  not  only  as  a  board  of  registry,  as  now,  but 
also  as  a  primary  or  nominating  election  board,  for  all  po- 
litical parties  and  during  the  whole  day,  exactly  as  at  a  regu- 
lar election. 

3.  Only  official  ballots  can  be  used,  which  are  made  up 
as  follows:    Any  fifty  voters  belonging  to  any  political  party 
can  sign  a  certificate  requesting  the  city  clerk,  the  county 
clerk,  or  the  secretary  of  state,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  print 
upon  the  official  primary  ballot  of  said  party  the  name  of  the 
person  named  in  said  certificates  as  the  candidate  of  their 
party  for  the  office  or  offices  named  in  the  certificate.     The 
effect  of  this  is  that  all  shades  of  opinion  will  be  represented 
on  the  primary  ticket. 

4.  The  city  clerk  or  the  county  clerk,  as  the  case  may  be 
prints  a  separate  official  ballot  for  each  party,  or  a  blanket 
ballot,  is  preferred.     This  ballot  contains  all  the  names,  al- 
phabetically arranged,  which  have  been  filed  with  the  said 
clerks   or   the   secretary   of   state   by   the   certificates    above 
stated. 

5.  The  city  or  county  clerk  hires  suitable  rooms  for  the 
registry  and  primary  election  in  each  precinct,  precisely  as 
at  present,  and  causes  the  booths  now  in  use  on  election  day 
to  be  set  up  there,  and  distributes  to  the  registry  or  nomin- 
ating election  board  the  official  ballots,  made  up  and  printed 
as  above  stated. 

6.  The  voter  on  registry  day  comes  to  his  precinct  reg- 
istry place,  registers,  announces  his  party  affiliation,  receives 
from  the  board  an  official  ballot  of  his  political  party,  enters 
the  booth,  makes  a  mark  opposite  the  names  of  the  candi- 
dates whom  he  favors  for  each  office  for  which  a  candidate 
is  to  be  voted  for,  and  then  deposits  this  ballot  in  the  box 
exactly  as  at  a  regular  election.     If  preferred,  the  ballots  of 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  107 

all  parties  could  be  given  to  each  voter,  and  he  could  be  al- 
lowed to  vote  then  without  declaring  his  party  affiliation. 

7.  At  the  close  of  the  day,  the  registry  and  election  board 
counts  all  the  ballots,  and  sends  a  certificate  to  the  city  or 
county    clerk,    stating   the    number    of   votes    cast    for    each 
candidate  on  the  ballot  of  each  party. 

8.  The  city  or  county  clerk,  or  secretary  of  state,  from 
these   returns   ascertains   which   candidate   has   the   plurality 
on  the  ticket  of  each  party.     The  candidate  having  the  plu- 
rality of  all  the  votes  on  each  party  ticket  is  declared  to  be 
the  nominee  of  that  party  for  the  office  in  question,  and  his 
name  is  printed  by  the  city  or  county  clerk  on  the  official 
ballot  of  that  party  which  is  prepared  for  the  regular  elec- 
tion. 

Its  Advantages. 

The  advantages  of  this  plan  are  manifold  and  obvious. 
There  is  the  widest  publicity  concerning  the  time  and  place 
of  holding  the  primaries.  At  present,  few  know  when  or 
where  primaries  are  held,  and  whenever  a  bitter  factional 
fight  is  on  in  any  party,  the  dominant  faction  calls  the  pri- 
maries at  an  inopportune  time  and  at  inconvenient  places, 
so  as  to  prevent  a  large  vote.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  few  voters 
know  where  or  when  their  party  primary  is  to  be  held,  but 
everybody  knows  where  and  when  to  register.  Under  the 
proposed  system,  the  act  of  participating  in  a  primary  would 
consume  but  little  more  time  than  the  act  of  registering 
itself. 

Secondly,  interest  in  the  primaries  would  be  vastly  great- 
er than  formerly.  For  the  reasons  previously  stated,  few 
now  care  to  attend  the  primaries,  because  they  can  only  vote 
for  a  delegate  to  a  convention,  whose  action  at  such  conven- 
tion is  uncertain,  and  often  exactly  contrary  to  the  prefer- 
ence of  the  voter  at  the  primary.  Under  the  proposed  plan, 
every  man  can  make  known  directly  what  persons  he  pre- 
fers to  have  as  the  candidates  of  his  party,  at  a  convenient 
time  and  place,  and  without  extra  trouble,  the  act  of  regis- 


108  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

try  and  voting  being  practically  identical.  This  would  re- 
sult in  an  exceedingly  large  vote  at  the  primary. 

Thirdly,  this  system  would  result  in  the  selection  of  bet- 
ter men  as  candidates  for  office,  or  rather  the  selection  of  can- 
didates under  better  conditions.  The  present  system  practic- 
ally disfranchises  the  mass  of  the  voters  of  a  party,  and  con- 
fines the  selection  of  candidates  to  professional  politicians 
and  bosses,  who  select  as  candidates  the  men  that  can  be 
depended  upon  to  work  for  private  or  partisan  ends.  The 
plan  suggested  throws  open  the  privilege  of  selecting  candi- 
dates to  the  whole  people,  and  the  successful  candidate  owes 
nothing  to  any  machine  or  set  of  politicians.  In  a  conven- 
tion, the  average  delegate  votes  largely  as  his  personal  in- 
terests dictate.  He  hopes  to  benefit  personally.  At  a  pri- 
mary participated  in  by  the  bulk  of  the  voters  of  a  party, 
the  average  voter  would  cast  his  vote  secretly  in  a  booth,  and 
usually  this  vote  would  necessarily  be  cast  without  any  hope 
of  private  or  personal  advantage.  A  convention  is  actuated 
by  the  hope  of  personal  advantage.  At  a  primary  where  the 
direct  vote  prevails,  the  average  voter,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
can  have  no  personal  motive  in  casting  his  vote,  and  his  ac- 
tion at  such  primary  is  necessarily  unselfish  and  for  the  best 
interests  of  his  party,  as  he  sees  it.  The  mass  can  hope  for 
no  office  or  political  reward. 

Then  again,  under  the  present  system,  the  voter,  on  elec- 
tion day,  is  often  compelled  to  choose  between  voting  for 
an  unfit  man  or  for  a  nominee  of  an  opposing  party.  No 
other  alternative  exists.  The  plan  presented  above  sets 
apart  a  day  for  the  selection  of  candidates,  and  the  single 
question  of  fitness,  separated  from  all  other  questions,  is 
then  passed  upon  by  the  voters  for  each  party,  under  condi- 
tions which  attract  the  mass  of  such  voters  and  secure  the 
selection  of  candidates  by  them,  uninfluenced  by  motives  of 
personal  or  private  advantage. 

Further,  the  change  in  the  conditions  surrounding  public 
officials  should  not  be  forgotten.  To-day,  if  an  official  elect- 
ed by  the  people  desires  re-election,  he  must  have  the  sup- 
port of  the  machine  at  the  primary.  To  obtain  this  support 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  109 

he  must  obey  the  machine,  and  the  requirements  of  the  ma- 
chine are  usually  incompatible  with  the  public  interest.  If 
the  system  advocated  prevailed,  the  public  official  would  ca- 
ter to  the  people,  not  to  the  machine;  that  is,  he  would  so 
act  as  to  strengthen  his  hold  upon  the  mass  of  the  voters. 


Gunton's  Magazine.  14: 155-7.    March,  1898. 

Reform  of  Primaries. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  this  protective  legislation, 
however  complete,  will  either  suppress  bossism  or  guaran- 
tee complete  integrity  in  management  of  primaries.  All 
that  law  can  do  is  to  furnish  the  fullest  opportunity  for  free- 
dom and  integrity,  and  ample  means  for  punishing  dishon- 
esty; but  when  all  is  done  that  can  be,  primaries,  like  regular 
elections,  will  be  no  purer  than  the -majority  of  the  people 
who  attend  and  manage  them.  After  all,  the  integrity  and 
wisdom  of  party  primaries  must  depend  upon  the  integrity 
and  patriotism  of  the  voters.  Those  who  are  sanguine 
enough  to  imagine  that  statute  law  can  create  political  purity 
and  abolish  bossism  are  doomed  to  disappointment.  The 
boss  does  not  exercise  his  influence  over  political  organiza- 
tions by  virtue  of  any  law.  He  acquires  that  influence  and 
leadership  by  the  exercise  of  some  personal  quality.  It 
may  be  by  the  high  quality  of  political  leadership,  or  by  the 
low  quality  of  political  rewards,  but  it  is  always  by  some  per- 
sonal quality  that  appeals  to  and  commands  the  confidence 
of  those  who  are  sufficiently  interested  in  politics  to  partici- 
pate actively  in  the  primaries. 

It  is  a  peculiar  fact,  in  connection  with  this  subject  that 
the  greater  part  of  those  who  are  most  interested — and  from 
the  purest  motives — in  reform  of  primaries  (and  who  are  in  the 
greatest  danger  of  unwittingly  legislating  away  political  free- 
dom in  order  to  suppress  political  abuses),  are  the  very  peo- 
ple who  seldom  or  never  attend  primaries  at  all.  They  are 


1 10  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

very  largely  people  who  belong  to  the  so-called  "better  ele- 
ment;" who  will  not  associate  with  the  "rabble,"  and  they 
look  upon  primaries  as  somewhat  beneath  their  dignity. 
From  various  motives — not  unworthy  motives — they  avoid 
the  caucuses  and  primaries,  leave  the  management  of  this  in- 
itiatory part  of  political  action  to  others,  and  then  complain 
if  it  does  not  go  to  their  liking.  This  continues  until  things 
go  from  bad  to  worse  and  ultimate  in  an  outburst  of  indigna- 
tion and  a  bolting  crusade.  Often  this  has  the  effect  of  de- 
stroying the  influence  of  party  organizations  upon  important 
public  issues,  and  defeats  the  very  object  most  desired  by 
handing  the  government  over  to  the  very  people  whom  every 
sentiment  of  political  integrity  and  social  decency  demands 
should  be  kept  out  of  public  office. 

Whatever  safeguards  of  law  may  be  thrown  around  the 
primaries,  nothing  can  guarantee  honest  action  and  wise 
leadership  except  the  constant  and  active  attendance  of  those 
who  believe  in  honest  politics  and  wise  public  policy.  No  re- 
form will  be  permanent  until  these  people  attend  and  take 
part  in  the  primaries,  with  the  same  interest  that  they  dis- 
play in  finding  fault  after  corrupt  practices  have  been  devel- 
oped. 

The  bosses  cannot  be  dispossessed  of  their  leadership  by 
any  legislative  enactment.  If  they  are  to  be  displaced  at  all 
it  must  be  by  substituting  superior  leadership,  by  bringing  to 
the  front  men  of  larger  views,  more  popular  personality  and 
more  patriotic  impulses.  In  other  words,  the  present  bosses 
can  be  deprived  of  the  power  they  now  exercise  only  by  sub- 
stituting better  and  stronger  leaders.  If  stronger  leaders 
cannot  be  found,  or  will  not  come  to  the  front,  if  men  with 
loftier  ideas  of  pure  politics  and  public  policy  insist  that 
they  are  too  good  to  participate  in  the  primaries,  then  the 
leadership  that  can  lead  on  the  plane  of  those  who  do  attend 
the  primaries  will  remain  in  control,  and  will  continue  to 
dictate  the  candidates  and  policies  of  the  great  political  par- 
ties in  state  and  nation;  and  no  amount  of  periodic  denunci- 
ation or  legal  enactments  can  prevent  them  from  so  doing. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  III 

Reform  of  the  primaries  is  needed.  Legislation  safe- 
guarding every  phase  of  our  political  machinery  should  be 
enacted.  Every  opportunity  that  now  exists  for  fraud  or  co- 
ercion, which  the  law  can  reach,  should  be  stopped;  but  all 
this  will  avail  nothing  toward  purifying  the  source  of  Ameri- 
can politics  unless  the  people  who  believe  in  pure  politics 
actively  participate  in  the  primaries  and  the  leaders  capable 
of  leading  on  a  higher  plane  of  political  integrity  and  patri- 
otism come  to  the  front  as  active  workers,  earn  the  confi- 
dence of  the  voters,  and  prove  their  capacity  for  leadership. 

Political  confidence  is  not  handed  around  like  a  new  hat. 
It  grows,  and  only  the  person  can  have  it  who  earns  it  by 
demonstrating  his  capacity  to  lead,  not  by  austere  dictation 
or  supercilious  faultfinding,  but  by  doing  the  things  that  are 
to  be  done  and  proving  by  active  devotion  to  public  inter- 
ests that  he  possesses  the  qualities  of  statesmanship  and  is 
entitled  to  the  faith  of  the  citizens.  Those  only,  who,  by 
their  acts  command  followers  and'  inspire  the  faith  of  the 
voters,  can  become  leaders.  If  we  do  not  have  leaders,  we 
are  sure  to  have  bosses,  or  political  chaos.  Any  attempt  to 
legislate  the  boss  out  of  existence  can  result  only  in  failure 
or  despotism.  It  is  higher  leadership,  more  patriotism  and 
less  snobbery,  that  is  really  needed  to  purify  the  primaries, 
rather  than  a  disfranchising  type  of  legislation. 


Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  20:  616-26.  November,  1902. 
Test  of  the  Minnesota  Primary  Election  System. 

Frank  M.  Anderson. 

An  outline  of  the  Minnesota  law  and  its  consideration  un- 
der these  divisions:  the  size  and  distribution  of  the  vote; 
whether  party  nominations  were  actually  made  by  members 
of  the  party;  the  quality  of  the  men  who  offered  themselves 
as  candidates  for  party  nominations;  the  quality  of  the  sue- 


112  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

cessful  candidates;  the  kind  of  methods  employed  in  the  cam- 
paign prior  to  the  day  of  voting;  the  effect  of  the  primary 
system  upon  party  organization,  methods  and  subsequent 
success;  the  attitude  of  the  people  towards  the  system  after 
its  trial. 


Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  20:640-3.  November,  1902. 

County  Primary  Elections. 

An  account  of  an  election  in  Bucks  County,  Pa.,  in 
which  the  convention  system  forms  a  means  of  keeping  the 
control  of  party  machinery  in  the  hands  of  the  worst  ele- 
ments of  the  County. 


Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  25: 203-17.  November,  1905. 
Municipal   Nomination   Reform.     Horace   E.   Deming. 

A  plea  for  the  direct  nomination  system,  so  modified  that 
candidates  are  chosen  for  the  political  policies  they  stand  for 
rather  than  for  their  affiliation  with  a  political  organization. 


Arena.  28:585-95.    December,  1902. 

Theory  and  Practice  of  the  New  Primary  Law. 

William  Hemstreet. 

MR.  Hemstreet  advocates  a  law  for  compulsory  attend- 
ance at  the  primaries,  believing  that  the  old-fashioned  con- 
vention system  may  be  made  the  best  if  all  the  people  will 
turn  out  and  delegate  the  right  man  at  the  primaries. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  113 

Arena.  29:71-5.  January,  1903. 

Primary  Election  Reform.     Edward  Insley. 

Good  definitions  of  primaries,  direct  primaries  and  open 
primaries  are  found  in  this  article.  The  author  states  six 
points  that  he  considers  essential  to  a  good  primary  law. 

Arena.  30: 295-301.    September,  1903. 

Caucus  or  King.    William  Hemstreet. 
A  plea  for  a  larger  attendance  at  the  caucus. 

Atlantic  Monthly.     79:450-67.    April,  1897. 

The  Nominating  System.    E.  L.  Godkin. 

A  history  of  the  methods  of  nominations  with  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  evils  of  them. 


Forum.    33:92-102.    March,  1902. 
Primary  Election  Movement.    Albert  Watkins. 

A  survey  of  the  gains  in  primary  election  reform  in  the 
various  states  with  especial  notice  of  the  Minnesota  system. 


Gunton's  Magazine.    20:323-32.    April,  1901. 

Doom  of  the  Dictator.    The  Editor. 

An  argument  that  the  death  of  the  dictator  is  essential  to 
the  life  of  the  democracy  because  he  exercises  his  power  in 
these  two  directions:  first,  by  dictating  nominations  through 


II4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  coercive  use  of  patronage;  second,  by  controlling  the 
nomination  of  candidates  to  the  legislature,  he  can  dictate 
legislation. 


Gunton's  Magazine.    26:23-8.    January,  1904. 
Caucus  Diseases.    William  Hemstreet. 

On  the  belief  that  the  root  of  political  distress  is  the  dis- 
like of  the  caucus,  the  author  pleads  for  a  reform  that  will 
insure  the  attendance  of  the  better  class  of  citizens. 


Nineteenth  Century.  4:695-712.    October,  1878. 

The  Caucus  and  its  Consequences.     Edward  D.  J.  Wilson. 

An  argument  against  adopting  the  caucus  in  England  with 
many  references  to  its  evils  as  found  in  America. 


North  American  Review.  137:257-69.  September,  1883. 

Facts  about  the  Caucus  and  the  Primary. 

George  Walton  Green. 

A  detailed  account  of  corrupt  practices  at  caucuses  and 
primaries  in  New  York,  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  Chicago, 
Cincinnati  and  many  other  places. 


Review  of  Reviews.    17:583-9.    May,  1898. 

The  Movement  for  Better  Primaries.    William  H.  Hotchkiss. 
A  discussion  under  three  heads:  first,  its  causes;  second, 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  115 

its  expression  in  various  states;  and  third,  the  New  York  pri- 
mary law. 


Review  of  Reviews.    24:465-8.    October,  1901. 
The  Minnesota  Primary  Election  Law.    A.  L.  Mearkle. 

An  outline  of  the  primary  election  law  as  first  tried  in 
Minneapolis  in  September,  1900,  mentioning  its  original  fea- 
tures, describing  its  operation  and  commenting  on  its  bene- 
ficial and  evil  effects. 

Review  of  Reviews.    31:337-41.    March,  1905. 

Political  Movements  in  the  Northwest. 

Charles  Baldwin  Cheney. 

The  article  sums  up  the  practical  working  of  the  primary 
system  in  Minnesota  and  Wisconsin. 


World  To-Day.    8: 290-7.    March,  1905. 

Colorado  Election  Frauds.    Arthur  Chapman. 

A  disclosure  of  the  frauds  in  Colorado's  election  of  1904 
and  an  account  of  the  efforts  to  convict  the  "Big  Mitt" 
men,  followed  by  statements  by  Governor  Adams  and  Ex- 
Governor  Peabody. 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ON 

DIRECT  PRIMARIES 

[REPRINTS] 


SUPPLEMENT 


MINNEAPOLIS 

THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 
1905 


Milwaukee  Sentinel,  September  28,  1904. 

F.   M.   Barnard  says  Primary   Election   Law  not  a  Success. 

"The  primary  election  law  has  been  tried  and  found  want- 
ing in  Minnesota,"  said  Frank  M.  Barnard,  assistant  sec- 
retary and  treasurer  of  the  Kettle  River  Quarries  company 
of  Minneapolis,  yesterday.  "Even  its  most  ardent  support- 
ers agree  that  it  needs  a  great  deal  of  amendment  to  make 
it  useful.  In  theory,  the  law  is  all  right,  but  it  has  failed 
absolutely  in  practice. 

"We  have  just  had  one  of  the  evidences  of  its  failure.  The 
notorious  'Doc  Ames'  who  is  under  an  indictment  on  a 
charge  of  corruption,  after  being  released  from  the  pen- 
itentiary on  a  technicality,  made  a  run  for  the  nomination 
for  congress  and  stood  third  when  the  votes  were  counted. 
He  had  6,000  votes,  while  the  two  above  him  received 
11,000  and  8,000,  respectively.  Two  other  candidates  received 
less.  It  would  have  taken  but  little  change  in  the  votes 
to  have  given  Ames  the  majority.  Such  a  thing  would 
never  be  possible  under  the  convention  system,  for  although 
such  a  man  might  have  a  certain  following,  the  better  ele- 
ment would  always  be  able  to  combine  against  him. 

"Another  incident  came  in  the  nomination  of  a  man  named 
Johnson,  who  ran  for  park  commissioner,  as  a  joke.  He  said 
he  did  it  only  to  see  what  would  happen,  and  was  nominated 
without  making  an  effort,  merely  because  his  name  was 
Johnson  and  he  lived  in  a  Swedish  district. 

"As  a  whole,  the  method  is  a  most  expensive  one  for  the 
candidates,  for  they  must  stand  two  campaigns.  Two  years 
ago  the  campaigns  were  modest,  but  now  the  nomination 
campaigns  require  as  much  money  as  the  election  campaigns. 
This  will  keep  out  all  but  office  seekers  who  are  willing  to 
spend  the  money." 


120  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Milwaukee  Sentinel,  October  24,  1904. 
M.  M.  Riley  Cites  Faults  of  Primary  Election  Law. 

That  the  incorporation  of  the  proposed  primary  election 
law  into  the  statutes  of  Wisconsin  would  enlarge  the  field 
of  the  professional  politician  has  been  demonstrated  by 
Attorney  M.  M.  Riley,  whose  letter  to  the  Sentinel  on  the 
subject  appears  below.  Mr.  Riley  has  made  a  computation, 
based  on  the  provisions  of  the  law  and  the  number  of 
election  precincts  in  the  state,  and  finds  that  if  all  parties 
that  are  entitled  to  places  on  the  official  primary  ballot  avail 
themselves  of  their  right  to  nominate  candidates,  there  will 
be  22,908  nomination  papers  filed.  All  this  is  contingent 
upon  there  being  no  contest  within  the  parties  for  any 
nomination.  Where  contests  are  instituted  the  number  of 
nomination  papers  will  be  multiplied. 

As  the  law  provides  that  the  man  who  circulates  the  nom- 
ination paper  must  make  oath  that  he  personally  knows  the 
signers  of  the  paper,  it  follows  that  a  new  field  of  activity 
will  be  opened  for  the  man  who  makes  politics  a  business 
in  campaign  years  and  looks  for  profit  to  the  men  who  are 
seeking  office.  The  figures  furnished  by  Mr.  Riley  are  in- 
teresting in  as  much  as  they  give  for  the  first  time  an 
approximate  estimate  of  the  number  of  men  who  would 
find  employment  in  this  new  occupation.  Should  the  circu- 
lators of  petitions  have  the  foresight  to  organize  themselves 
into  a  union,  the  result  might  be  startling. 

Mr.  Riley's  letter  follows: 

"The  proposed  primary  election  law  to  be  submitted  to 
our  citizens  for  approval  at  the  ensuing  election  is  a  vicious 
measure  for  these  reasons: 

"i.  It  make  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  more 
costly  and  increases  the  burdens  of  taxation  levied  for  elec- 
tion purposes.  It  is  estimated  that  the  cost  of  a  general 
election  is  approximately  $150,000  or  $80  per  precinct.  Should 
the  proposed  bill  be  approved,  the  expense  of  holding  a 
general  election  would  be  more  than  doubled  to  every  town- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  121 

ship,  village  and  city  within  the  state,  which  would  have  to 
be  provided  for  by  addition  taxation. 

"2.  It  surrounds  the  elective  franchise  with  complicated 
machinery  and  makes  the  nomination  of  party  candidates 
more  expensive  and  cumbersome. 

"4.  It  takes  from  the  people  the  right  to  freely  select 
those  candidates  they  deem  best  qualified  to  serve  them  in 
public  office  and  makes  the  soliciting  of  public  office  by  pol- 
iticians a  business  by  itself. 

"5.  It  incorporates,  recognizes  and  makes  provision  and 
place  for  the  employment  of  the  local  boss  and  political 
heeler  as  a  necessary  adjunct  to  nomination  for  public 
office. 

"The  extent  to  which  the  proposed  law  gives  life  and  em- 
ployment to  the  precinct  heeler  and  ward  boss  is  only  to 
be  arrived  at  by  resorting  to  figures  showing  the  numbers 
necessary  to  employ  to  secure  a  nomination. 

"There  are  seven  county  officers  to  be  elected  in  each 
county — viz.:  Clerk  of  courts,  county  clerk,  register  of  deeds, 
sheriff,  district  attorney,  coroner,  and  county  treasurer;  so 
that  the  candidates  of  each  party  would  be  obliged  to  cir- 
culate in  Milwaukee  county  168  separate  nomination  papers, 
if  there  be  no  contests  for  the  nomination  of  any  office  within 
the  party  ranks.  Every  candidate  contesting  the  nomina- 
tion for  office  adds  twenty-four  to  the  number. 

"There  are  to-day  seven  (7)  different  political  parties 
entitled  to  a  place  on  the  official  ballot,  and  if  each  of  them 
place,  as  they  are  entitled  to,  a  ticket  in  the  field,  it  would 
require  the  circulation  of  1,176  nomination  papers. 

"There  are  1,863  election  precincts  in  the  state,  and  eleven 
congressmen  to  be  elected,  each  of  whom  must  circulate 
nomination  papers  in  one-tenth  of  the  precincts  in  his  dis- 
trict. Nomination  paper  for  all  congressmen  requiring  one- 
tenth  of  the  whole,  or  the  circulation  of  187  separate  papers 
by  each  party.  Should  all  parties  entitled  to  a  place  on 
the  ballot  make  nominations  the  number  of  nomination 
papers  necessary  to  be  circulated  would  be  1,309. 

"There    are    seven   county   officers   to   be   elected   in    each 


122  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

of  the  seventy-one  counties  in  the  state,  or  497  in  all,  each 
of  whom  must  circulate  petitions.  It  would,  therefore,  be 
necessary  to  circulate  3,379  in  five  precincts  in  each  county, 
making  9,895  in  all. 

"State  officers  for  each  party  require  the  circulation  of 
forty-eight  petitions,  336  in  all.  There  are  100  assembly- 
men to  be  elected,  requiring  the  circulation  of  312  nomina- 
tion papers  by  the  candidates  of  each  party,  or  2,184  in  all. 
Thirty-three  senators,  require  the  circulation  of  a  like  num- 
ber. 

"The  total  number  of  nomination  papers  required  to  be 
circulated  under  the  law  for  state,  county,  congressional,  and 
legislative  officers  being  22,908,  without  a  contest  for  nomina- 
tion to  any  office  of  the  several  offices  within  the  party 
ranks. 

"The  contests  for  places  within  the  various  parties  would 
largely  increase  this  number  if  all  parties  now  entitled  to 
a  place  upon  the  ballot  continued  to  put  a  ticket  in  the  field. 
The  practical  result  would,  however,  be  the  suppression  of 
all  minority  parties  and  leave  the  majority  party  a  clear 
field,  without  opposition,  which  is  evidently  the  purpose  of 
the  proposed  law. 

"The  proposed  law  apparently  includes,  in  addition  to  the 
foregoing,  nominations  for  city  officers,  but  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  ascertain  the  number  of  nomination  papers  required. 
In  the  city  of  Milwaukee,  however,  it  would  require  the  cir- 
culation of  1,728  nomination  papers  for  city  and  ward  officers 
alone,  when  there  are  no  contests  within  the  party. 

"6.  It  is  our  own  boast  that  under  our  representative 
form  of  government  opportunity  is  open  to  all  alike  and 
that  there  is  no  position  to  which  the  humblest  and  lowest 
citizen  may  not  aspire.  We  point  with  pride  to  Lincoln, 
Garfield,  and  others  in  our  history  who  have  risen  from  pov- 
erty and  lowly  surroundings  to  the  highest  office  within 
our  people's  gift.  But  if  the  proposed  primary  election  bill 
become  a  law,  while  in  theory  public  offices  may  be  open  to 
all  alike,  they  will  in  fact  be  confined  to  those  with  the 
longest  purses  or  the  strongest  'pull/ 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  123 

"7.  The  proposed  law  is  destructive  of  the  old  time  idea 
of  the  fathers  of  the  republic  that  'office  should  seek  the 
man  and  not  the  man  the  office.'  But  it  is  noticeable  that 
men  who  secure  a  nomination  and  election  to  public  office 
these  days  are  generally  around  where  the  office  can  find 
them,  ready  and  willing  to  sacrifice  themselves  on  the  altar 
of  public  duty. 

"The  proposed  law  is  also  directly  in  opposition  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  and  is  evidently  intended  to 
render  nugatory  its  provisions  as  to  the  selection  of  sen- 
ators." M.  M.  Riley. 

Milwaukee,  Oct.  23. 


Milwaukee  Sentinel.    November  3,  1904. 

W.  M.  Spooner  Points  Out  Danger  of  Coercian  in  Primary 

Law. 

Special  dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.     Phillips,  Wis.,  Nov.  2. 

"Everyone  in  this  audience  knows  that  under  the  present 
caucus  system,  with  all  its  faults,  no  man  need  know  how 
another  man  votes.  Everyone  knows  that  no  man  need  be 
constrained  by  fear  of  losing  his  position,  if  working  for  a 
corporation,  by  voting  as  his  conscience  dictates.  Everyone 
knows  that  if  100  men  (we  will  say  railroad  employes)  go 
to  the  caucus  booth,  fifty  voting  one  way,  for  the  candidate 
the  railroad  may  want  nominated,  and  fifty  for  the  candidate 
the  railroad  does  not  want  nominated,  that  railroad  com- 
pany need  never  know  which  fifty  voted  for  and  which  fifty 
voted  against  the  candidate  they  wanted  nominated. 

But  under  this  La  Follette  primary  election  law  no  em- 
ploye, nor  any  other  laboring  man,  can  have  any  voice  in 
the  selection  of  men  whose  names  are  to  be  placed  on  the 
primary  election  ballot  without  signing  his  name  to  a  nom- 
ination paper  and  thus  rendering  himself  liable  to  persecu- 
tion and  the  loss  of  his  position. 


124  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

"If  railroad  and  other  employes  desire  to  place  themselves 
politically  in  the  absolute  control  of  their  employers,  then  let 
them  pass  this  La  Follette  primary  election  law  and  that 
desire  will  have  been  accomplished." 


Milwaukee  Sentinel.     March  22,  1905. 

Primary  Law  Is  Denounced. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  new  primary  election  law 
went  into  effect  it  was  given  a  trial  in  the  state  yesterday, 
and  reports  that  were  received  last  night  from  cities  that 
had  experience  with  the  substitute  for  caucuses  stated  that 
it  had  given  no  general  satisfaction.  Complaint  was  heard 
everywhere  that  the  primaries  had  failed  to  arouse  any 
special  interest  and  that  the  expense  had  been  altogether 
too  high  and  in  many  cases,  where  there  were  no  contests, 
needless.  In  Wauwatosa  the  expense  of  holding  the  re- 
publican primary  was  greater  than  that  of  an  election.  In 
some  places  in  the  state,  Cumberland  for  instance,  it  cost  as 
rr>»tch  as  $2  to  cast  each  vote.  Wauwatosa  voters  expressed 
themselves  as  sorely  disappointed  over  the  operation  of  the 
law.  In  New  Richmond  there  was  not  a  single  contest, 
but  the  cumbersome  operation  had  to  be  gone  through  just 
the  same. 

Another  complaint  was  the  complicated  system  required 
by  the  new  law.  In  some  cities  many  voters  refused  to  go 
through  the  necessary  red  tape,  and  insisted  on  inserting 
names  not  included  in  the  nominations.  Among  the  cities 
which  held  primaries  were  Appleton,  Racine,  Janesville, 
Oshkosh,  Sheboygan,  Watertown,  La  Crosse,  Cumberland, 
New  Richmond. 

One  reason  for  the  lack  of  contests  was  the  unwillingness 
of  business  men  to  make  a  canvass  for  signers  to  nomina- 
tion papers.  In  most  cases,  it  appears,  there  is  great  delay 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  125 

in  completing  the  count  because  of  the  mistakes  made  by 
voters  under  the  complicated  system. 


Milwaukee  Sentinel.     March  23,  1905. 
Primary  Election  in  Wisconsin. 

The  first  test  of  the  Wisconsin  primary  election  law  was 
made  Tuesday  last.  While  it  was  not  a  full  test,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  it  was  a  fair  one  and  in  so  far  as  an  opinion 
may  be  based  on  this  experiment  the  law  has  earned  and  is 
already  receiving  severe  condemnation. 

The  law  did  not,  as  it  was  asserted  it  would,  call  out  a 
full  vote  of  the  people  who  were  represented  to  be  anxious 
to  participate  in  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  office  by 
a  direct  vote,  at  a  primary  election.  In  Wauwatosa  but 
175  votes  were  cast  in  the  four  wards,  and  twenty-eight 
primary  election  officers  were  required  to  see  that  the  175 
voters  did  not  neglect  any  of  the  formalities  incident  to  the 
ceremonious  occasion. 

In  Cumberland  it  cost  $2  to  supervise  the  casting  of  each 
vote  at  the  primaries.  At  Madison,  Racine,  Appleton,  New 
Richmond,  La  Crosse,  and,  in  fact,  every  city  in  the  state 
where  a  primary  election  was  held,  dissatisfaction  was  gen- 
erally expressed  with  the  working  of  the  new  law,  partic- 
ular objection  being  made  to  the  cost  of  the  experiment. 


Milwaukee  Sentinel.     March  23,  1905. 

Primary   Law   too    Expensive. 

Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.    Marinette,  Wis.,  March  22. 
The  effect  of  the  primary  law  also  was  unfortunate  in  its 


126  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

revival  of  "dirty  politics."  There  was  more  mud  slinging 
between  certain  candidates  for  the  republican  nomination 
than  there  has  been  in  years  before  under  the  old  system. 
All  candidates  agree  that  many  important  changes  must  be 
made  in  the  law,  as  it  costs  more  than  the  gross  revenues 
of  minor  offices  to  secure  the  nominations. 


Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.  Kenosha,  Wis.,  March  22. 
Kenosha  had  its  first  test  of  the  primary  election  law  yes- 
terday, and  there  is  a  general  call  for  its  repeal  to-day.  Less 
than  one-sixth  of  a  normal  vote  of  the  city  was  cast,  and 
the  officials  in  charge  spent  most  of  the  day  on  the  mass  of 
tangled  figures.  As  a  result  of  the  workings  of  the  law  the 
republicans  have  no  candidates  in  four  wards  of  the  city 
and  no  candidate  for  the  office  of  city  assessor.  The  dem- 
ocrats are  equally  handicapped,  no  petitions  having  been 
filed  in  some  of  the  democratic  wards.  The  primary  cost 
the  city  more  than  $300. 


Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.  Baraboo,  Wis.,  March  22. 
Little  interest  was  taken  in  the  primary  election  for  city 
officers  yesterday.  Out  of  1,600  voters  in  this  city  about  240 
were  cast,  costing  the  city  about  $1.25  for  each  vote.  It  is 
the  universal  opinion  of  nine-tenths  of  the  voters  that  the 
law  ought  to  be  repealed. 


Milwaukee  Sentinel.    March  24,  1905. 

Press  Comments  on  Primary  Election. 

Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.     Oshkosh,  Wis.,  March  23. 

General  feeling  with  regard  to  the  operation  of  the  primary 

election    law   here   is   one    of   pointed    dissatisfaction.      Few 

people  are  speaking  in  its  defense  and  candidates  and  voters 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  127 

alike  denounce  it.  Caucuses  and  conventions  have  been  held 
without  expense  to  the  city,  but  the  primary  cost  the  munic- 
ipality something  in  the  neighborhaad  of  $1,000.  This  makes 
the  cost  of  each  of  the  4,000  votes  cast  25  cents. 

Further,  it  is  urged  that  business  this  spring  must  undergo 
the  disturbance  of  two  elections  instead  of  one.  The  cam- 
paign for  the  primary  on  both  the  republican  and  the  dem- 
ocratic side  was  as  hard  fought  as  a  regular  election.  One  of 
the  democratic  candidates  is  believed  to  have  expended 
$j,ooo  in  the  effort  to  be  nominated.  House  to  house  can- 
vasses were  made.  The  city  was  flooded  with  heralds  and 
dodgers,  and  paid  workers  congregated  on  the  dead  line 
at  the  polls. 

The  obliteration  of  party  lines  and  its  effect  on  party 
organization  is  one  of  the  worst  features  of  the  result  that 
the  republican  party  will  have  to  face.  Although  Roosevelt 
carried  the  city  by  over  2,000,  a  much  greater  number  of 
votes  was  cast  for  the  two  democratic  candidates  for  mayor 
than  for  the  two  republicans.  This  is  explained  by  the  state- 
ment that  the  republicans  deserted  their  party  champions  for 
the  reason  that  the  party  platform  of  the  democrats  was  in 
evidence  and  the  business  element  distrusted  the  stand  of 
the  republicans.  The  moral  effect  of  the  showing  causes 
apprehension  among  the  republican  party  managers,  who 
fear  that  election  day  may  bring  defeat  to  their  candidates. 

A  variance  of  opinion  between  the  state  attorney  general 
and  the  city  attorney  caused  confusion  and  may  lead  to 
litigation.  The  attorney  general  ruled  that  names  written 
in  should  not  count.  City  Attorney  Stewart  held  that  they 
should,  and  the  canvassing  board  follows  the  local  authority. 
The  result  is  that  a  number  of  candidates  will  be  placed 
on  the  official  ballot  who,  according  to  the  attorney  general, 
have  no  standing. 

A  large  number  of  ward  offices  and  one  justiceship  nom- 
ination should  be  vacant  under  the  ruling  of  the  attorney 
general.  The  canvassing  board  has  filled  these  nominations 
from  "scattering  votes."  This  will  result  in  test  lawsuits. 

One  of  the  allegations  made  in  reference  to  the  election 


128  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

is  that  the  large  number  of  votes  received  by  one  of  the 
democratic  candidates  for  office  of  mayor  indicates  that  the 
republicans  attempted  to  execute  a  coup  on  the  democratic 
party  by  forcing  the  nomination  of  the  weaker  candidate. 

The  charge  is  also  made  that  "dirty  politics"  was  indulged 
in  and  some  of  the  candidates  are  in  a  bad  frame  of  mind 
because  of  the  attacks  made  upon  them  by  opponents  in 
their  own  party. 

Axes  are  being  sharpened  that  will  be  wielded  with  effect 
on  the  first  Tuesday  in  April. 


Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel,  Fond  Du  Lac,  Wis.,  March 
23- 

The  strongest  advocates  of  the  primary  election  law  in 
this  city  have  little  to  say  for  it  since  they  have  had  a  prac- 
tical opportunity  to  demonstrate  its  merits.  Nearly  all 
admit  that  it  is  a  clumsy  and  expensive  political  machine 
without  material  excuse  for  its  existence. 

At  a  primary  election  on  Tuesday  the  only  contest  on  the 
city  tickets  was  for  the  nomination  of  two  justices  of  the 
peace  on  the  republican  ticket,  there  being  three  candidates. 
The  party  did  not  have  any  candidates  for  constables,  and 
the  democrats  renominated  the  present  justices  and  con- 
stables without  opposition.  In  the  sixteen  wards,  where  candi- 
dates for  twenty-four  aldermen  and  sixteen  supervisors  were 
to  be  nominated,  there  were  just  six  contests.  In  all  the 
other  thirty-four  cases  there  was  but  a  single  candidate  on 
each  side,  making  sixty-eight,  and  they  could  all  have  been 
nominated  by  acclamation  within  a  few  minutes  without 
the  intervention  of  a  primary  election.  Under  the  new  sys- 
tem there  were  over  100  members  of  inspecting  boards  and 
clerks  on  duty  from  6  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  9  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  after  which  the  few  votes  had  to  be  counted. 
In  the  wards  where  the  few  contests  were  a  good  vote  was 
polled,  but  in  the  other  wards  it  was  small. 

The  expense  of  the  general  primary  election  is  as  large 
as  that  of  the  usual  general  election,  and  it  will  amount  to 
at  least  $200  for  each  contest  that  was  made  for  nomina- 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  129 

tions.  In  some  of  the  wards  one  or  the  other  of  the  parties 
had  no  candidates  for  alderman  or  supervisors.  The  voters 
attempted  when  they  gathered  to  supply  the  deficiency  by 
writing  in  the  names  of  candidates  on  the  ballots,  but  the 
inspectors  refused  to  count  the  votes  thus  cast  on  the  ground 
that  they  do  not  conform  to  the  law  as  interpreted  by  the 
attorney  general  of  the  state.  An  attempt  will  be  made  in 
some  of  these  instances  to  have  the  deficiency  supplied 
when  election  time  comes,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  names  pro- 
posed after  the  primary  election  will  be  allowed  to  go  on 
the  official  ballot.  Altogether  the  thing  seems  to  be  a 
pretty  mess,  and  citizens  do  not  know  what  to  do  to  re- 
cover the  rights  to  vote  for  such  candidates  as  they  desire 
to  support. 


Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.     Racine,  Wis.,  March  23. 

Democrats  have  won  their  point  in  regard  to  a  defect  in 
the  primary  election  law  and  City  Clerk  Schroff  will  act  con- 
trary to  the  opinion  of  the  attorney  general.  When  the 
primaries  were  about  to  be  held  there  were  eight  blanks 
on  the  democratic  ticket  for  aldermen  and  supervisors  and 
several  on  the  social  democratic  ticket.  The  city  committee 
proposed  to  fill  in  the  blanks,  but  was  told  that  this  could 
not  legally  be  done.  The  tickets  went  before  the  voters 
blank,  so  far  as  the  democratic  ticket  was  concerned,  but 
many  were  filled  in  by  the  voters.  The  democrats  claimed 
that  the  city  clerk  must  place  the  names  of  candidates  re- 
ceiving the  largest  number  of  votes  on  the  regular  ticket  at 
the  April  election  and  threatened  mandamus  proceedings  to 
compel  the  clerk  to  insert  the  names.  City  Attorney  Walker 
advised  that  the  tickets  be  filled  out  with  the  names.  It 
is  said  that  the  law  is  full  of  defects  and  if  followed  out 
would  deprive  the  voter  of  his  constitutional  rights. 


130  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Milwaukee  Sentinel.    April  i,  1905. 

Michigan-Wisconsin  Debate. 

Special  Dispatch  to  the  Sentinel.  Madison,  Wis.,  March  31. 
Michigan's  representatives  attacked  the  primary  system 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  too  complicated  for  the  purpose  of 
nominating  officers  and  that  it  is  impracticable  to  hold  a 
primary  whenever  it  is  necessary  to  elect  officers.  They 
claimed  that  the  system  restricts  the  vote  and  cited  instances 
tending  to  prove  this  statement  to  be  correct.  Reference 
was  made  to  the  experiment  in  Minnesota  and  the  complaint 
that  has  been  made  there  in  regard  to  it  together  with  the 
demand  from  many  quarters  in  that  state  to  return  to  the 
old  system.  They  maintained  that  the  system  delegates  the 
power  of  government  too  much  to  the  masses  that  are  not 
fit  for  the  control  of  it  ind  that  it  was  never  the  intention 
of  the  founders  of  the  government  to  delegate  the  power 
of  the  government  entirely  to  the  people.  Another  argu- 
ment used  was  that  in  the  primary  election  the  members  of 
the  weak  party  with  little  fight  for  nominations  may  vote  on 
the  ticket  of  the  party  and  nominate  a  weak  man  against 
their  own  party  candidate.  The  expense  question  was 
brought  out  as  another  point  against  the  system  and  the 
Michigan  men  contended  that  a  poor  man,  however  worthy, 
could  not  afford  to  run  for  office  as  he  could  not  afford  to 
pay  the  expenses  brought  on  by  the  system. 

Speech  of  R.  M.  La  Follette  on  Primary  Election. 

(Delivered  before  the  Michigan  University,  March  12,  1898.) 

But  stop  and  think  what  such  a  primary  election  law  would 
do  for  political  parties  as  well  as  for  the  public  service. 

It  would  destroy  the  political  machine  because  it  would 
abolish  the  caucus  and  the  convention  by  the  easy  manip- 
ulation of  which  the  machine  controls  in  politics. 

It  would  appeal  to  every  member  of  the  party  to  partic- 
ipate in  the  primary  election  because  it  would  insure  every 
member  in  the  party  an  equal  share  in  the  selection  of  its 
candidates  and  in  shaping  its  policy. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  131 

It  will  quicken  and  invigorate  as  with  new  life  the  rapidly 
expiring  interest  of  every  citizen  in  the  nominations  of  his 
party.  If  we  will  guarantee  to  the  citizen  the  same  orderly 
and  decent  surroundings,  the  same  certainty  of  casting  his 
ballot  unmolested  and  having  it  honestly  canvassed,  and  re- 
turned at  a  primary  election,  as  the  law  now  affords  him  at 
the  general  election,  then  he  will  take  the  same  interest  in 
attending  upon  the  one  as  upon  the  other.  Aye,  if  we  assure 
to  every  citizen  a  voice  in  nominating  the  candidates  of  his 
party,  we  shall  inspire  in  him  a  patriotic  interest  in  both 
the  primary  election  and  the  general  election  enduring  be- 
yond the  heat  and  fervor  of  the  campaign. 

It  would  greatly  strengthen  party  organization.  There 
would  be  no  reason  for  bolting  because  each  member  of  the 
party  would  know  that  the  candidates  had  been  fairly  nom- 
inated and  were  true  representatives  of  his  party  principles. 
He  would  know  that  they  were  not  the  creatures  of  the  ma- 
chine, or  of  a  convention-combination,  or  born  of  the  barrel. 

It  would  greatly  improve  the  character  of  the  nominations. 
Men  would  be  nominated  because  they  stood  for  something; 
because  they  had  right  convictions,  and  the  power  and  the 
courage  to  declare  and  defend  them;  because  they  had  proven 
their  wisdom,  their  statesmanship,  their  patriotism,  their 
faithfulness  in  the  service  of  the  people.  The  man  of  no 
opinions,  or  of  extreme  opinions  could  never  win  the  con- 
fidence and  support  of  the  great  body  of  conservative  men 
in  his  party.  The  boss,  the  heeler  or  the  corruptionist  would 
not  offer  himself  as  a  candidate  for  nomination  at  a  primary 
election  under  the  Australian  ballot. 

It  would  bring  into  public  life  the  best  talent  of  the  times. 
No  man  could  be  nominated  to  office  except  there  were 
weightier  reasons,  than  that  he  was  a  millionaire,  or  in  the 
service  of  the  corporations,  or  "wanted  by  the  organization." 
Men  are  to-day  mainly  selected  for  office  through  the  agency 
of  the  caucus  and  convention,  not  for  their  distinguished 
abilities,  but  because  they  can  be  depended  upon  to  vote 
on  the  "right  side."  If  the  legislators  who  elected  United 
States  senators  were  nominated  by  the  direct  vote  of  the 


132  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

people,  many  men,  now  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and 
many  men  who  aspire  to  go  there,  would  find  themselves 
obliged  to  serve  their  corporations  as  private  citizens. 

It  would  elevate  the  public  service.  Why  is  it  that  public 
servants  are  so  indifferent  to  public  opinion  to-day?  Why 
is  it  that  platform  pledges  are  fast  becoming  with  us  here 
in  Wisconsin  as  "false  as  dicers'  oaths"?  Why  is  it  that 
the  nominees  of  the  caucus  and  the  convention  scorn  the 
good  opinion  of  the  rank  and  file  of  their  party?  It  is  be- 
cause they  are  wholly  independent  of  the  rank  and  file — 
the  great  majority  of  their  party!  Between  the  nominee  of 
the  convention  and  the  great  body  of  his  party  stands  the 
political  machine.  It  nominates  the  candidate — nominates 
him  often  times  against  the  will  of  a  majority  of  his  party. 
It  is  his  master;  he  its  humble  servant.  The  servant  obeys 
his  master.  If  the  official  owes  his  nomination  to  the  ma- 
chine, and  he  desires  to  continue  in  office  or  to  advance,  he 
will  obey  the  machine  and  ignore  his  party  and  the  public. 
If  he  owes  his  nomination  to  the  direct  vote  of  the  people, 
cast  at  a  primary  election,  under  the  Australian  ballot, 
he  will  do  the  people's  service. 

With  the  nominations  of  all  candidates  absolutely  in  the 
control  of  the  people,  under  a  system  that  gives  every  mem- 
ber of  a  party  equal  voice  in  the  making  of  that  nomination, 
the  public  official  who  desires  a  renomination  will  not  dare 
to  seek  it,  if  he  has  served  the  machine  and  the  lobby  and 
betrayed  the  public  trust;  if  he  has  violated  the  pledges 
of  his  party  and  swapped  its  declared  principles  to  special 
interests  for  special  favors. 

But  under  a  primary  election  the  public  official  who  has 
kept  faith  with  the  public  can  appeal  to  that  public  for  its 
approval  with  confidence.  He  will  then  have  every  incentive 
to  keep  his  official  record  clean.  If  he  have  no  loftier  stan- 
dard than  mere  personal  success  he  will  nevertheless  so 
administer  his  office  as  to  earn  the  commendation,  "Well 
done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant." 

The  nomination  of  all  their  candidates  by  the  direct  vote 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  133 

ot  the  people  is  the  spirit,  the  very  life  of  representative  gov- 
ernment. It  is  plain,  simple,  practical.  It  is  their  right.  It 
will  come.  Whoever  seeks  to  thwart  or  defeat  it  is  an 
enemy  of  representative  government.  Let  him  beware! 
Whoever  would  control  as  the  agent  of  the  machine  will 
encounter  lasting  defeat.  Let  him  beware!  The  country  is 
awakening,  the  people  are  aroused.  They  will  have  their 
own.  The  machine  may  obstruct,  misdirected  reform  may 
temporize,  but  "be  of  good  cheer,  strengthen  thine  heart," 
the  will. of  the  people  shall  prevail. 

I  appeal  to  you,  young  men  and  old,  plain  citizens  and  pol- 
iticians. You  are  confronted  with  a  great  responsibility.  In 
this  contest,  you  must  either  stand  for  representative  govern- 
ment or  against  it.  The  fight  is  on.  It  will  continue  to 
victory.  There  will  be  no  halt  and  no  compromise. 


Speech  by   Hon.  James   G.   Monahan  against  the   Primary 
Election  Law. 

(Delivered  before  the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elec- 
tions of  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  the  Wisconsin  Legisla- 
ture, February  12,  1901.) 

I  am  opposed  to  this  bill — 

First.  Because  the  provision  which  makes  it  necessary  for 
a  candidate  before  he  can  get  his  name  printed  on  the  pri- 
mary ballot,  to  secure  two  per  cent,  of  the  voters  of  his  party 
to  sign  a  petition  asking  him  to  be  a  candidate  and  those 
voters  must  reside  in  five  precincts  or  townships  in  case  of 
a  county  office,  and  twelve  counties  if  for  a  state  office,  im- 
poses  upon  a  candidate  an  unnecessary  expense,  and  will 
deter  many  modest  men,  with  but  little  money,  from  becom- 
ing candidates;  increases  the  activity  of  the  boodler  and 
the  professional  politician,  lengthens  the  arm  of  every  boss 
and  increases  the  strength  of  every  machine  in  the  state. 

Second.     It  will  practically  deprive  the  farmer  vote  from 


134  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

any  voice  in  either  county  or  state  affairs.  It  is  useless 
to  sneer  at  this  proposition  as  some  do.  Sneering  doesn't  meet 
the  argument.  When  one  class  of  voters  resides  within  a  few 
minute's  walk  of  the  polls,  while  the  other  must  come  by 
teams,  from  one  to  eight  miles,  the  handicap  is  too  great, 
the  conditions  too  unequal  to  contend  that  the  farmer  vote 
can  protect  itself,  or  candidates  for  state  offices  residing  in 
rural  communities  could  possibly  have  any  show  of  success. 
Should  this  bill  become  a  law,  Milwaukee  and  the  other 
large  cities  would  dominate  the  state.  In  county  affairs 
Madison  and  Stoughton  would  control  in  Dane  county; 
Janesville  and  Beloit  in  Rock;  Darlington  and  Shullsburg  in 
Lafayette. 

The  date  fixed  for  this  primary  election  is  the  first  Tues- 
day in  September,  when  the  farmers  are  busily  engaged  in 
threshing  and  cutting  corn.  These-  men  must  come  from 
one  to  eight  miles  to  vote.  What  percentage  of  them 
would  leave  their  work  to  do  so?  The  bill  makes  primary 
election  day  a  legal  holiday;  also  registration  day  in  the 
cities.  This  will  bring  out  a  full  vote  in  the  cities,  and  as 
a  result,  candidates  from  the  country  districts  will  invariably 
be  defeated.  This  argument  is  met  by  saying  that  the  coun- 
try vote  will  combine  against  the  cities.  This  can't  be  done 
unless  a  combination  is  made  among  the  candidates  and 
people  outside  the  cities;  and  when  this  is  done,  you  have 
simply  built  up  a  machine  and  installed  some  additional 
bosses. 

Third.  "Unnecessary  taxation  is  unjust  taxation."  And 
this  bill  will  impose  a  tax  approximating  $150,000  upon  the 
people  of  this  state.  A  general  election  costs  even  more  than 
this,  and  men  who  have  examined  this  bill  carefully  say 
it  will  prove  even  more  expensive  than  a  general  election. 

In  presidential  years  we  will  have  two  primary  elections, 
one  in  April  to  nominate  presidential  electors  and  elect 
delegates  to  the  various  national  conventions;  the  other  in 
September  to  nominate  state  and  county  officers.  This  will 
put  the  law  in  operation  twice,  for  which  the  people  will  be 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  135 

taxed  in  a  sum  approximating  $300,000  for  something  which 
now  does  not  cost  them  a  cent. 

Fourth.  Under  the  provisions  of  this  bill  we  abandon  the 
system  that  the  majority  shall  rule  for  one  that  minorities 
may  govern. 

For  example,  suppose  in  one  of  the  counties  four  candi- 
dates entered  the  field  for  the  nomination  of  assemblyman 
under  the  provisions  of  this  bill.  Each  of  the  first  three  re- 
ceives 300  votes,  while  the  fourth  receives  305  votes.  He 
would  be  the  nominee,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he  re- 
ceived but  305  votes  out  of  a  total  of  1,205  cast. 

Under  the  present  convention  system,  when  there  are 
several  candidates,  delegates  can  vote  for  their  first  choice, 
and  if  it  is  found  he  can  not  be  nominated,  they  can  vote 
for  their  second  choice. 

Delegates  are  always  anxious  to  nominate  a  "strong  tick- 
et"— one  that  will  win  at  the  polls.  Hence  they  inquire 
closely  into  the  character,  record  and  ability  of  the  candi- 
date before  supporting  him,  and  this  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  we  have  so  few  dishonest  or  incompetent  officials. 
Under  the  proposed  new  plan,  the  voter  has  no  opportunity 
to  converse  with  anyone  outside  of  his  voting  precinct,  as 
to  the  character  or  ability  of  the  candidate;  no  opportunity 
to  express  a  second  choice  in  case  his  first  choice  cannot 
win.  And  the  chances  are  even,  that  some  political  hustler 
who  has  money  to  spend,  time  to  work,  and  a  disposition  to 
do  both,  will  defeat  men  for  the  nomination  who  are  in  every 
way  better  qualified,  better  men,  and  would  make  better 
officials. 

Fifth.  This  bill  takes  away  from  the  people  the  right  to 
make  the  platform,  and  gives  the  power  to  the  candidates 
for  state  officers,  state  senators  and  members  of  the  assem- 
bly, and  the  various  parties  will  have  a  candidates'  instead 
of  a  people's  platform.  This  is  getting  near  to  the  people 
with  a  vengeance.  The  bill  provides  that  "The  candidates 
for  the  various  state  offices  for  senate  and  assembly  nom- 
inated by  each  political  party  shall  meet  in  the  assembly 
chamber  at  12  o'clock  noon  on  the  second  Wednesday  after 


136  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  date  of  the  primary  election  and  formulate  a  platform  for 
their  party."  To  us  it  seems  that  this  provision  is  one  of 
the  lamest  of  this  wholly  bad  bill.  The  idea  that  the  people 
are  going  to  surrender  a  declaration  of  their  principles  to  a 
hundred  and  twenty-five  candidates  whose  sole  object  is  to 
be  elected,  and  who  would  make  a  platform  look  like  a  crazy 
quilt  if  necessary  to  further  that  end,  is  a  proposition  too 
ridiculous  for  serious  consideration. 

Sixth.  The  provisions  of  the  bill  make  it  impossible  to 
consider  location  or  nationality  in  the  nomination  of  the 
tickets.  Under  the  convention  system  these  matters  are  al- 
ways given  due  consideration,  and  usually  with  satisfactory 
results.  The  last  republican  state  ticket  was  not  only  well 
distributed  geographically,  but  representatives  of  American, 
German,  Scandinavian  and  Irish  races  were  nominated.  Del- 
egates discuss  these  matters  when  they  meet  at  conventions. 
It  is  part  of  their  business.  But  under  this  proposed  system 
how  can  the  voter- — who  has  no  opportunity  to  discuss  affairs 
with  anyone  outside  his  precinct — find  out  where  a  candidate 
lives  or  to  what  nationality  he  belongs.  If  anything  of  the 
kind  is  attempted,  will  it  not  be  necessary  to  have  a  boss  or 
machine  in  every  precinct  to  tell  the  people  how  to  vote? 
The  answer  to  this  is  that  the  voters  could  tell  from  the 
names  on  the  ballots  what  the  nationality  of  the  candidate 
was.  In  some  instances  this  is  true,  but  I  submit,  if  any 
man  could  tell  from  the  name  that  Harvey  was  an  American, 
Hicks  an  Irishman,  or  Davison  a  Norwegian.  The  Irish 
and  Germans,  residing  as  they  do  largely  in  cities,  might  be 
able,  in  a  measure,  to  protect  themselves,  but  the  Norwegian 
is  a  farmer,  and  what  show  would  he  have? 

Seventh.  The  bill  in  principle  is  a  long  step  toward  the 
abandonment  of  representative  government,  bequeathed  to 
us  by  the  founders  of  this  government,  for  the  vagaries  of 
populism. 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  137 

Speech  by  Hon.  M.  G.  Jeffris  against  Primary  Election  Law. 

(Delivered  before  the  Senate  and  Assembly  Committees  on 
Privileges  and  Elections  of  the  Legislature  of  Wisconsin, 
February  19,  1901.) 

That  there  is  some  room  for  improvement  in  the  caucus, 
convention,  and  Republican  political  system  now  in  vogue 
any  fair-minded  man  will  concede,  but  it  must  come  from 
their  improvement  and  not  their  destruction. 

It  discourages  proper  political  activity  where  it  is  essen- 
tial for  the  benefit  and  welfare  of  the  state  and  nation,  and 
forces  politics  upon  the  people  where  they  should  be  entirely 
excluded.  In  state  and  national  matters  it  weakens  proper 
politics,  and  in  municipal  matters — where  they  have  no 
place — interjects  them. 

If  one  should  be  willing  to  swallow  his  modesty  and  after 
taking  the  steps  necessary  to  get  a  nomination  paper  and 
file  his  paper  and  his  declaration  that  he  will  qualify  and 
act  if  elected,  but  which  steps  and  which  declaration  really 
mean,  and  will  be  so  understood,  that  it  is  his  earnest  desire 
to  fill  a  state  office,  and  that  he  proposes  to  make  a  fight 
to  gratify  his  desire,  he  is  qualified  to  start  in  the  race.  He 
must  be  either  one  wheel  of  a  machine  or  be  prepared  to 
make  a  fight  of  his  life  if  he  has  any  hopes  of  success.  Forty 
days  before  the  primary  election,  that  is  sometime  in  July, 
and  having  his  machinery  in  operation  months,  or  possibly 
years,  before,  he  must  file  a  nomination  paper  which  shall 
contain  the  names  of  at  least  two  per  cent,  of  the  voters  of 
his  party  distributed  over  at  least  twelve  counties  of  the 
state.  These  voters  must  be  proven  to  be  such,  with  their 
residence  fixed,  by  affidavit.  Of  course  he  has  retained  a 
fairly  good  lawyer  to  look  over  his  papers  and  see  that  they 
comply  with  the  requirements  of  the  39  sections  of  this  bill. 
If  he  cannot  afford  to  go  to  all  this  trouble  he  should  keep 
out  of  the  race  because  before  the  law  the  rich  and  poor 
stand  equal. 

Aside  from  the  candidate  for  the  office  of  governor,  com- 
paratively little  will  be  known  of  the  others  beyond  their  own 


138  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

immediate  surroundings,  and  they  must  proceed  to  make 
themselves  known  if  they  desire  to  attain  the  first  place  in 
the  wild  race  for  office.  If  this  bill  operates  as  claimed  by 
its  advocates  there  will  be  many  candidates.  Men  who  are 
financially  able  will  run  up  their  lightning  rod  in  hopes  that 
in  the  jumble  to  follow — in  the  free-for-all — they  will  stand 
just  a  chance  of  being  struck.  A  candidate  is  selected  who 
receives  a  small  plurality,  but,  who,  maybe,  receives  less  than 
a  tenth  of  the  vote  cast.  A  man  who  would  have  no  chance 
whatever  if  the  party  of  the  state  through  its  representatives 
had  selected  its  candidates.  Would  it  follow  that  he  is  the 
best  man,  the  most  available  candidate,  or  that  he  had  any 
particular  qualification  for  the  place — not  at  all.  Who  is 
he  bound  to  be?  He  will  be  the  one  who  has  best  organized 
his  forces — one  who  has  been  spending  his  time  in  politics 
and  has  the  most  grafters  following  in  his  train — one  who 
can  get  the  most  newspapers  to  blow  his  horn..  Will  it  be 
said  that  this  is  all  true  of  the  convention  system?  It  is  not 
true  to  any  such  great  extent  at  least. 

Under  this  law  great  power  is  given  to  railroad  corpo- 
rations. They  can  organize  enough  voters  swiftly  and  se- 
cretly to  control  every  nomination.  An  individual  would  be 
powerless  as  against  them.  Under  our  present  system 
they  have  never  dared  to  take  hand  in  political  matters. 
Where  nominations  were  made  on  bare  pluralities  their 
means  of  organization  are  so  great  that  they  would  be  able 
to  dictate.  Corruption  in  one  county  under  this  law  would 
affect  the  entire  state  so  far  as  nomination  of  state  officers 
are  concerned. 

Would  we  get  the  most  desirable  timber  for  candidates? 
How  many  men  who  are  not  purely  professional  politicians 
would  undertake  to  get  a  nomination?  A  serious  objection 
to  this  bill  lies  in  the  fact  that  for  a  man  to  obtain  any  kind 
of  an  office  he  must  almost  of  necessity  go  out  begging  for 
it.  You  and  I  can  pick  out  men  both  in  the  Senate  and 
Assembly  who,  if  they  had  to  go  around  and  get  up  a  nom- 
ination paper  and  then  work  for  a  nomination,  as  provided 


DIRECT  PRIMARIES  139 

for  in  this  bill,  they  would  never  have  been  in  either  house 
of  our  legislature.  And  these  men  are  among  your  most  val- 
uable members. 

The  promoters  of  this  bill  say  that  it  will  do  away  with 
machines.  That  is  its  purpose  so  as  to  give  more  power 
to  the  people.  It  follows  that  if  it  does  this  it  will  at  least 
invite  contest  for  office  and  not  withstanding  the  fact  that 
a  Republican  state  party,  a  Republican  congressional,  sen- 
atorial, and  assembly  district  may,  with  practical  unanimity, 
desire  to  send  back  a  faithful  Republican,  it  cannot  do  so 
without  going  through  all  the  machinery  of  this  bill.  Should 
your  party  desire  to  return  one  of  you  gentlemen  to  the 
legislature  in  acknowledgement  of  your  services  here,  still 
the  same  process  would  have  to  be  gone  through  to  secure 
your  nomination  and  get  your  name  upon  the  official  ballot 
as  a  representative  of  your  party,  as  though  you  came  before 
the  people  for  the  first  time. 

Keep  constantly  before  you  that  we  are  considering  a  par- 
ticular bill,  a  bill  that  has  not  had  the  approval  of  the  people 
or  of  any  convention.  Under  it  to  vote  at  a  primary  election 
one  must  swear  that  he  belongs  to  a  certain  party  and  in 
tends  to  vote  with  that  party  at  the  next  election.  What 
becomes  of  the  young  man  who  has  never  voted  and  who 
cannot  swear  that  he  belongs  to  any  party.  How  about 
the  great  floating  vote  which  each  party  appeals  to  on  prin- 
ciples? They  are  both  disfranchised  because  they  cannot 
swear  that  they  belong  to  a  political  party,  although  they 
may  intend  to  vote  with  it  in  the  future.  In  my  judgment 
such  a  bill  is  unconstitutional.  This  would  be  an  election. 
The  constitution  fixes  the  qualifications  of  electors.  A  dec- 
laration that  he  now  belongs  or  intends  to  belong  in  the 
future  to  some  political  party  is  not  one  of  the  constitutional 
qualifications.  This  legislature  cannot  add  or  take  from  the 
constitution.  Certainly  the  gentlemen  will  not  claim  that 
the  Republican  convention  obligated  the  Republican  legisla- 
tors to  pass  a  law  which  conflicts  with  the  state  constitution. 

We  are  considering  a  bill  which  I  believe  contains  one  of 
the  most  vicious  principles  that  can  well  be  presented  to 
any  legislative  body.  If  the  legislature  of  Wisconsin  is  to 


140  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

do  anything  upon  the  subject  upon  which  I  am  about  to 
speak,  it  should  do  exactly  and  diametrically  the  opposite 
thing  to  that  provided  in  this  bill.  This  bill  provides  that 
it  shall  apply  to  all  elections  except  those  for  judicial,  village, 
township  or  school  district  offices  of  special  elections.  This 
bill  then  includes  city,  county,  and  general  municipal  election. 
There  is  a  concensus  of  opinion  by  all  of  the  best  thinkers 
upon  the  subject  of  municipal  government  that  party  politics 
in  so  far  as  municipal  government  is  concerned,  should  be 
entirely  abrogated. 

In  this  bill  there  is  at  least  one  provision  that  can  only  be 
properly  characterized  as  absurd.  It  provides  that  after  the 
nominations  the  candidates  and  certain  committeemen  shall 
promulgate  a  platform.  The  committeemen  are  in  some 
instances  appointed  by  the  candidates.  These  committeemen 
are  compelled  to  assemble  at  their  own  expense.  There  is 
not  the  excitement  of  a  convention  to  draw  them.  They  come 
to  approve  a  platform  made  by  candidates.  A  majority  lays 
down  a  platform.  How  about  the  minority  which  disapproves 
of  a  majority  declaration?  We  are  told  not  to  worry  about 
such  trifles. 

The  caucus  and  convention  system  grew  and  are  main- 
tained not  for  the  primary  purpose  of  selecting  men  to  fill 
offices.  They  had  their  origin,  and  their  maintenance  is  for 
the  primary  purpose  of  selecting  and  promulgating  principles 
and  of  then  selecting  men  to  carry  those  principles  into 
effect.  Under  this  bill  principles  are  relegated  to  the  rear. 
Principles  are  of  no  importance.  Under  this  bill  the  vital 
question  before  the  people  all  the  time  is  who  shall  fill  the 
offices?  Not  what  shall  a  party  stand  for,  not  what  are  its 
ideals,  but  who  shall  draw  the  salary?  And  the  bill  is  so 
constructed  that  the  men  who  hold  hardest  and  fastest  to 
the  ideals,  and  the  men  who  believe  in  the  establishment 
and  maintenance  of  principles,  are  sent  to  the  background, 
while  the  hustling,  pestiferous  demagogue  who  is  brazen 
faced  enough  to  chase  up  and  down  the  state  for  votes,  is 
the  one  who  shall  administer  our  affairs.  The  man  whose 
sole  motive  is  to  get  an  office,  declares  for  us  after  he  has 
got  his  nomination  what  we  stand  for. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL  NO.  642-3405 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


LD  2lA-40m-2,'69 
(J6057slO)476— A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YC  09339 


210080     ' 


